I have always disliked veggie burgers, too. I am amazed how fast my tastes are changing. I had a veggieburger at the farmer's market last Saturday, and as I am typing this thinking about it, my mouth started watering. It was soooo good!
(I don't really know the answer to your question, but I wanted to throw that out there for you, too.)
Yeah not all veggie burgers are made with soy isolates.
Our favorite local restaurant makes them with black beans, brown rice and beets (and they taste great). And my husband whipped up some last week from mushrooms, tofu, and toasted pecans. Also yummy!
For me, I'm ok with soy milk (unsweetened) and tofu, but that's as far as I venture into the realm of processed soy beans. On an average day, I have less than one serving of soy milk or tofu. Mostly because there are so many other good and colorful things to eat!
-Anne
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Ok, I've got a good grasp on the following principles:
- whole soy beans = good for you
- isolated soy protein - most likely bad for you
But I'm not sure how to classify soy products. I've seen a lot of negative comments about soy milk, but the label says it's made with whole soy beans. Is there another reason soy milk is bad for you? What about tofu?
Unfortunately, the most nutritious foods generally have the lowest shelf life and are most easily damaged in processing. And omega 3 fats are are easily oxidized, destroyed by cooking, and spoil when left exposed to air. Processed foods rarely have them.
Which is unfortunately the case with soy milk. I buy Trader Joe's brand usually, because it's just whole soy beans and water, but the omega 3 fats have been destroyed by processing. I wouldn't consider it to be a great health food like whole soy beans that are water-cooked in soup or lightly steamed.
But there are some seriously damning health risks with cow's milk. I wouldn't call the evidence conclusive, but I would say persuasive and not worth the risk.
There seems to be a consensus that vitamin B12 is one thing that your body needs that you may not get enough of from today's store bought fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains (e.g. the vegan diet).
B12 deficiencies are serious. You must supplement.
Unfortunately, with depleted soil and chemical fertilizers that only contain a few essential nutrients, B12 isn't the only thing. Zinc is getting to be a more common deficiency as well, even if you're not vegan.
In some ways I wish Dr. Fuhrman didn't sell stuff because it makes him look like just another South Beach/Atkins I'm-gonna-make-money-by-selling-food-products doc, but he sells stuff you can't find anywhere so I end up buying.
One of those things is his Gentle Care vitamin supplements. They're not overloaded with a high dose of one of the 8 variants of beta carotene like other vitamins are that have been linked to cancer, for example. They just have the stuff that is increasingly missing from modern food production, like B12 and zinc.
I was listening to a very wholesome interview with Nina Planck (author of Real Food) today on my way to work and she was correctly pointing out that on the one hand Americans are among the most unhealthy people in the world and on the other hand you have this extreme obsession with health and diet and nutrition - trying to come up with bulletproof ways of diseaseproofing your body and various ideological camps fighting each other, each one wanting to be right and the one with the
Tell this to (healthy) people of countries who eat and live in a natural and traditional way. They would look at us as if we were crazy. They are most concernt about flavor in food, about enjoying the art of cooking and eating together. They follow the seasons. They eat what is available locally. If you do live in a country with seasons and want to eat locally (like our families did for generations), there is no way you can eat mostly plant foods for example. It's simply a matter of availablity. Fresh fruit in particular is a very seasonal thing being only available in late summer and in the early fall. Even I can remember as a kid, we would only eat apples when they were ripe. Grapes you only got in September and October. Berries had a window of a few weeks in summer. We had lots of fresh vegetables when they were available from late April through October. In winter we had root vegetables, lots of sauerkraut (homemade, I may add, made from cabbage and sea salt only, and stored in a big barrel in our cellar). We had a big crate that we filled with potatoes in the fall and they would last through the winter.
My grandmother and great aunts, who lived in the mountains in South Tryol, would also slaughter the house pig in the fall, make bacon, sausages (the hard kind that keeps). They would store as many eggs as possible, store certain kinds of apples and pears. During the winter months, their three cows ate the hay they had harvested and dried in the late summer and that would provide them with fresh raw milk and butter. They would also make their own cheese. For cooking they used butter and lard as everyone in the rest of the world did who did not live in an olive oil producing region. Thy enjoyed a glass of red wine (the one produced regionally) every now and then adn that was it for alcohol.
They never worried about cholesterol levels, saturated fat intake or preventing disease by not eating certain things that had been enjoyed by generations before them. And they all did more than fine. They were never sick (at least not that I can remember), my great aunt lived to be 102, my grandmother was in her early 90s when she died.
What they did not do was, worry too much. They did go to church for comfort and community. They aslo didn't eat processed flour or any industrially produced (convenience) foods for that matter. They ate extremely little sugar (since it ws expensive and considered a luxury item). They did eat organ meats regularely (when availble). Liver mostly, but also lungs, hearts, brains. When an animal was slaughtered absolutely nothing was wasted. Not a single bone. They had soup (made from bones) many times during the week. They didn't eat lots of food. Big mulity course meals were only enjoyed on certain church holidays.
Now, it's very hard to live with seasons and close to nature when you're in a big city in today's world. But we can only try. (Michael Pollan is trying, Nina Planck is trying). The enjoyment of good (real) food made from scratch was always a very important part in my family growing up. They all cooked extremely well (including my mother). I loved it as a kid and I still do today.
The only reason I read some of those nutritional books or articles is the fact that at one point in the 1980s the nutritionists took over and told everyone that the traditional way of eating was wrong and bad and suicidal. So we all got confused. We started to experiment with vegetarianism, then lots of whole grains, littel to no meat and so on and so on.
Nina Planck told the exact same story. Grew up with real foods, butter, raw milk, organ meats, farm fresh vegetables. Then came the 80s, the vegan phase, the vegetarian phase until she returned to her roots and rediscovered the pleasures and health benefits or traditional real foods. And she's very happy today. Me too. And I am hoping I can pass that on to my daughter - who's already confused since her science teacher is hammering them with all the politically correct dogmas of how to eat right.
Maybe a cholesterol level below 150 does protect you from heart disease and if one's truely happy eating a specific diet - perfect. But in my opinion, most nutritionists are missing the central point of eating: it should be nurishment for the body and for the soul.
I'm not sure who that is who made the forum post, but he believes he heard Dr. Castelli say that 5 people had heart attacks who had total cholesterol below 150 all their lives. I wasn't at the talk where he says he heard Dr. Castelli say it.
But I have seen Dr. Castelli say this, over and over, and for publication:
"In 40 years of the Framingham study, there has not been one single heart attack in anyone with total cholesterol under 150 mg/dL. The Framingham Heart Study also reveals that approximately 90 percent of all coronary deaths could be prevented if total cholesterol were kept below 182 mg/dL, systolic blood pressure were kept under 120 mmHg, and no smoking or diabetes were present."
Probably the most sensible thing is to look at the Framingham study itself instead of relying on a forum post of what some guy thought he heard Dr. Castelli say. Here's the Framingham risk predictor derived from the study:
Note that they don't predict 0% chance, nor should they. Stuff happens like genetic abnormalities. Even if the guy in the forum was right and 5 died, that's 0.1%. I'll take those odds.
The last two have to do with a link between low cholesterol and depression. The authors of the study said, "They believe depression may lower blood cholesterol levels." Could be, I'm not an expert on depression. Maybe you eat less and lose weight, I dunno. But they're not claiming low cholesterol causes depression. They're claiming the reverse.
Also: "Another finding was that high levels of HDL cholesterol, the so-called healthy cholesterol found in food such as oily fish, were linked to risk of death from suicide.
They believe this is because high HDL cholesterol is associated with increased alcohol intake, a suicide risk, and that this, rather than HDL levels, accounts for the finding."
I'm afraid I'm not an expert on high alcohol intake either. I didn't know it raised HDL.
The first article noted that "that low cholesterol increases the hazard of the less common but potentially devastating hemorrhagic strokes that result from burst blood vessels in the brain."
That's true. It isn't common, like heart attacks and blood clots in the brain are, and it's thought that plaque actually keeps weak vessels from bursting. But it's also believed that they were weakened by years of exposure to high blood pressure from high salt intake and a diet low in high-nutrient foods with omega-3 fats (a diet high in processed foods, in other words). You rarely see them in people who eat diets rich in whole fresh plants.
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited February 15, 2008
> Maybe a cholesterol level below 150 does protect you from heart disease and if one's truely happy
> eating a specific diet - perfect. But in my opinion, most nutritionists are missing the central point
> of eating: it should be nurishment for the body and for the soul.
Well, I think we just arrived at the crux of the issue and the reason for such high emotions. Eating cheesecake with a thick topping of whipped cream is thoroughly nourishing to the soul for many people. Without cheesecake, maybe they get depressed or live unhappy lives.
What makes me happy is vibrant health, not cheesecake. That's what's great about a free society: you get to choose what makes you happy! :ivar
I really appreciate how Baldy can answer these things. I just don't know as much.
The one thing I'm absolutely convinced of when it comes to nutrition: we believe what we want to believe. My friend and I will always have to agree to disagree, although we DO agree on 95%, that a diet high in whole plant foods is good for you. We just differ on the meat/dairy/fat aspect of it.
I really appreciate how Baldy can answer these things. I just don't know as much.
The one thing I'm absolutely convinced of when it comes to nutrition: we believe what we want to believe. My friend and I will always have to agree to disagree, although we DO agree on 95%, that a diet high in whole plant foods is good for you. We just differ on the meat/dairy/fat aspect of it.
A lot of times with topics as complicated as nutrition, that's the way it goes. I've heard, for instance, that there are a handful of people in the world who really, truly understand theoretical physics. That leaves the rest of us to ponder our navels and use our substantially less creative imaginations to dream up wtf they mean when they say we could be just a brain floating in space.
That doesn't mean that there isn't a reasonably clear picture out there on what is going on. It just means that from our vantage point in the midst of the white noise of study after study and newspaper articles and "professional opinions" and "some guy with a website" and "my doctor told me..." Everyone is going to latch on to something and they'll be able to find something or someone, somewhere that will back them up on it. You can find internet sites about anything.
Baldy's a fabulous resource. I've never come across anyone that can wade through an impossible volume of information and give it back passionately but respectfully in a way that's easy for anyone to understand like he can.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
There seems to be a consensus that vitamin B12 is one thing that your body needs that you may not get enough of from today's store bought fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains (e.g. the vegan diet).
So, how do you all get enough B12? Buy foods fortified with it? Take a vitamin supplement? Think your current foods have enough? Not worrying about it?
You are correct in thinking todays veggies are not as nutritious as in eons past, and this is due to the fact that growers super fertilize everything with chemicals.....even our "organic" food is not 100% organic......so yes I do take a B - supplement and find that if I take them at bed time.....I am awake prior to the alarm going off at 5am........what I take is a B - 150 (so all almost all the B's in either 150mcg or 150mgs depending on the ..............
There seems to be a consensus that vitamin B12 is one thing that your body needs that you may not get enough of from today's store bought fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains (e.g. the vegan diet).
So, how do you all get enough B12? Buy foods fortified with it? Take a vitamin supplement? Think your current foods have enough? Not worrying about it?
A couple of things I know about B12:
- It is the only water-soluble vitamin that your body can store well. Typically, you have about a 6 month to a year reserve.
- Being deficient can be nasty. You don't want to mess with deficiency.
- I developed tongue lesions about six months ago (an early symptom of B12 deficiency, though it could have been caused by something else), and it put the fear in me so I started taking supplemental B12. They went away.
I don't get B12 in any foods anymore because the only refined foods I really eat are my soymilk, occasional breakfast cereal, and tofu. Some canned beans, etc. but nothing with added vitamins.
So I still supplement when it occurs to me to do so (a few times a week). Each pill is much more than the RDA. A word of warning: A "B complex" vitamin doesn't always contain B12, so read the label!
A word of warning: A "B complex" vitamin doesn't always contain B12, so read the label!
-Anne
Oh gawd yes.....always read your labels.......
Not just on your vitamins but read every lable of all the processed food you eat......You know it is time for a new diabetic doc when they tell you that protein bars from the wally world and slim fast is okay for you....oh yeah if you want a SUGAR HIGH........I even read the labels on plastic wrapped (bagged) food items......you never know what chemicals are put where.......Grocery shopping can be scary at times..........D
Mate the link you have posted is no different to religion. Its a case of someone willing to believe what they wish to believe. I would hardly expect you to post a link saying recent studies have shown vegetarians have 'x' health issues thus shortening their lives.
I know eating butter out of the packet is bad for me...i also know constant exercise is good for me & everything else lies in between at different points on a graph. People must understand its balance/variation (genetics) & moderation that runs us and determines our health.
Baldy's a fabulous resource. I've never come across anyone that can wade through an impossible volume of information and give it back passionately but respectfully in a way that's easy for anyone to understand like he can.
I'd second your thought, Mike. I can't believe how hard it is to get what seems like a modern, science-backed answers to so many of these questions. Baldy, your time to explain this to us and to offer references to other information that we can read and study ourselves is massively appreciated. I happen to be the kind of person that likes to hear things explained, then go read for myself, see if I understand it all and then see if it makes sense to me. Then, I am often tested when I need to explain it to others (like my wife or other family members who are now also interested).
So, thanks from me too, Baldy! Your efforts to explain this stuff and provide information we can consume ourselves is much appreciated.
Unlike most business issues, this actually is (or at least could be) a life or death topic.
Mate the link you have posted is no different to religion. Its a case of someone willing to believe what they wish to believe.
Whoops, sorry. I must've fumbled the link and sent you to a site that said, "Halleluja!! We are all saved! Amen!"
The link I meant to include had hard statistics that none of us would like to believe:
"This study, from scientists at the University of Manchester, analyzed 141 articles involving 282,137 cancer cases and 20 different types of malignancies to determine the cancer risk associated with a 5 kilogram-per-meter-squared increase in BMI, roughly the increase that would bump a person from middle-normal weight into overweight.
In men, such an increase in BMI raised the risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma by 52 percent, thyroid cancer by 33 percent, and colon and kidney cancer by 24 percent each."
The source was Michael Thune, head of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society. He's not a minister. Sorry for the confusion.
B12 deficiencies are serious. You must supplement.
One of those things is his Gentle Care vitamin supplements. They're not overloaded with a high dose of one of the 8 variants of beta carotene like other vitamins are that have been linked to cancer, for example. They just have the stuff that is increasingly missing from modern food production, like B12 and zinc.
Yeah, I get 'em because I've seen a blood test or two from friends come back low in zinc. Turns out men need more zinc than women because semen has high concentrations of it. So Gus has to go to the junkyard and scrounge zinc. Raw meat and nails for breakfast, zinc plates for lunch.
Yeah, I get 'em because I've seen a blood test or two from friends come back low in zinc. Turns out men need more zinc than women because semen has high concentrations of it. So Gus has to go to the junkyard and scrounge zinc. Raw meat and nails for breakfast, zinc plates for lunch.
I put a handful of pumpkin seeds on my salad, probably 5 days a week. Hope that's enough. Don't want to run out!
EDIT: Oh, and a can of chickpeas about 5 days a week, too! phew.
Baldy, your time to explain this to us and to offer references to other information that we can read and study ourselves is massively appreciated.
Thanks, guys. We are so very lucky because with a few books here, a few forum posts there, and some discussions with our friends, they can sidestep so much tragedy and sorrow.
John, I never responded about your link to Uffe Ravnskov and his book, The Cholesterol Myths. I'm very aware of him and read some of his English-language papers, but to be really honest I wonder what point he's trying to make.
(Hu and Willet conducted Harvard's Nurses Health Study.)
If the point of that paragraph is to say, "The fat % of your intake doesn't matter," it's a fair point. Nuts are high in fat. But the rest of the paper seems intent on casting doubt on Hu and Willet's dietary recommendations. "it is elementary that epidemiological evidence cannot be used to establish causality, but only to create hypotheses." Fine, then it's just Hu and Willet's hypothesis that veggies are good for you. I can deal.
He said, "There is much evidence to suggest that omega-3 fatty acids have
a beneficial influence on cardiovascular disease." Then why the title, "Retreat of the Diet-Heart Hypothesis"? I might substitute the word advance for retreat.
His job is independent researcher. I actually think that means unemployed. I don't see him publishing research, just publishing critiques of research from people like Willet.
His leading favorable review, which he and Amazon still point to, is from Stephen Byrnes, who shared his views. Dr. Byrnes died of massive stroke in his early 40s a few years ago.
His book is critical of the cholesterol hypothesis but does not give a hypothesis for what causes heart disease.
He says on his website that you cannot lower your cholesterol except with drugs.
He discounts the Framingham Heart Study because the correlation between heart attacks and cholesterol level is only 0.36, but doesn't mention the greatest finding of the study: no one has observed coronary disease when total cholestrol is below 150.
If he's right about Willet not being able to conclude that veggies are good for you, okay, then what is? He doesn't say. Guess we'll just have to chomp veggies until he suggests something.
Thanks, guys. We are so very lucky because with a few books here, a few forum posts there, and some discussions with our friends, they can sidestep so much tragedy and sorrow.
John, I never responded about your link to Uffe Ravnskov and his book, The Cholesterol Myths. I'm very aware of him and read some of his English-language papers, but to be really honest I wonder what point he's trying to make.
...
If he's right about Willet not being able to conclude that veggies are good for you, okay, then what is? He doesn't say. Guess we'll just have to chomp veggies until he suggests something.
Thanks. I went through a bunch of what he says again and he appears to just want to shoot everything down without actually suggesting any answers himself which leaves me incredibly unsatisfied.
He does raise a bunch of interesting questions about the Framingham study (like what methods were use to select which deaths would be autopsied to measure atherosclerosis and were the selection methods unbiased), but not in a way that you can tell there's actually a problem, just in a way that they are questions that aren't answered in what he's read about the study. He likes to imply that the fact that these questions haven't been written about means the study is flawed, but there's no way to tell if that's actually the case without getting the answers to those questions.
I also KNOW that my own cholesterol level has been dramatically lowered through diet and exercise so he's clearly wrong in his point #5. I don't need any study to prove that because I've done that one myself on myself and the results were big.
He and other opponents of a linkage between cholesterol and heart disease like to say that one can't really tell if it's the cholesterol that causes the problem or the activities that led to the cholesterol level. I say, who cares. If you do the completely natural and low risk activities (healthy diet and exercise, no smoking, reduce stress, etc...) that happen to lead to a lower cholesterol level, you will enjoy better health. I don't need to argue about whether it's the lower cholesterol level or other benefits achieved because of the same activities. In either case, you are enjoying better health which is the objective.
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited February 16, 2008
My feelings exactly.
In the last few years some remarkable books have been published like The China Study and Omnivore's Dilemma. Personally, I feel that the biggest breakthrough of The China Study is to get Colin Campbell, it's author, speaking to the public in English instead of to the scientific community in Geek. Maybe his son deserves the credit for co-authoring it.
The guys who got traction, like Dr. Atkins, The Weston Price Foundation, and the various popular diet gurus, actively sent out press releases, appeared on radio and TV, and partnered with food companies to make products that go on supermarket shelves.
The great thing about books like The China Study and The Ominivore's Dilemma, is they're hard to discredit. How do you disprove the statement, "No one with total cholestrol below 150 is known to have coronary disease"? You have to find some cases. How do you disprove, "Get your calories from whole vegetables, fruits, nuts, and legumes and your cholesterol will fall to 170 or below"? You have to find people who really did get their calories that way and didn't see the drop.
I've seen two guys take a swing at The China Study, but they couldn't seem to land blows.
Comments
Thanks for the complete reply. It's helpful in discussions I have with friends outside this forum. I really appreciate your depth of knowledge. :smo
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Yeah not all veggie burgers are made with soy isolates.
Our favorite local restaurant makes them with black beans, brown rice and beets (and they taste great). And my husband whipped up some last week from mushrooms, tofu, and toasted pecans. Also yummy!
For me, I'm ok with soy milk (unsweetened) and tofu, but that's as far as I venture into the realm of processed soy beans. On an average day, I have less than one serving of soy milk or tofu. Mostly because there are so many other good and colorful things to eat!
-Anne
Which is unfortunately the case with soy milk. I buy Trader Joe's brand usually, because it's just whole soy beans and water, but the omega 3 fats have been destroyed by processing. I wouldn't consider it to be a great health food like whole soy beans that are water-cooked in soup or lightly steamed.
But there are some seriously damning health risks with cow's milk. I wouldn't call the evidence conclusive, but I would say persuasive and not worth the risk.
Unfortunately, with depleted soil and chemical fertilizers that only contain a few essential nutrients, B12 isn't the only thing. Zinc is getting to be a more common deficiency as well, even if you're not vegan.
In some ways I wish Dr. Fuhrman didn't sell stuff because it makes him look like just another South Beach/Atkins I'm-gonna-make-money-by-selling-food-products doc, but he sells stuff you can't find anywhere so I end up buying.
One of those things is his Gentle Care vitamin supplements. They're not overloaded with a high dose of one of the 8 variants of beta carotene like other vitamins are that have been linked to cancer, for example. They just have the stuff that is increasingly missing from modern food production, like B12 and zinc.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
> true http://www.vegsource.com/talk/campbe...ages/9539.html
I'm not sure who that is who made the forum post, but he believes he heard Dr. Castelli say that 5 people had heart attacks who had total cholesterol below 150 all their lives. I wasn't at the talk where he says he heard Dr. Castelli say it.
But I have seen Dr. Castelli say this, over and over, and for publication:
"In 40 years of the Framingham study, there has not been one single heart attack in anyone with total cholesterol under 150 mg/dL. The Framingham Heart Study also reveals that approximately 90 percent of all coronary deaths could be prevented if total cholesterol were kept below 182 mg/dL, systolic blood pressure were kept under 120 mmHg, and no smoking or diabetes were present."
Probably the most sensible thing is to look at the Framingham study itself instead of relying on a forum post of what some guy thought he heard Dr. Castelli say. Here's the Framingham risk predictor derived from the study:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/framingham/risktmen.pdf
Note that they don't predict 0% chance, nor should they. Stuff happens like genetic abnormalities. Even if the guy in the forum was right and 5 died, that's 0.1%. I'll take those odds.
> http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9902/06/strokes/
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/352216.stm
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/435305.stm
The last two have to do with a link between low cholesterol and depression. The authors of the study said, "They believe depression may lower blood cholesterol levels." Could be, I'm not an expert on depression. Maybe you eat less and lose weight, I dunno. But they're not claiming low cholesterol causes depression. They're claiming the reverse.
Also: "Another finding was that high levels of HDL cholesterol, the so-called healthy cholesterol found in food such as oily fish, were linked to risk of death from suicide.
They believe this is because high HDL cholesterol is associated with increased alcohol intake, a suicide risk, and that this, rather than HDL levels, accounts for the finding."
I'm afraid I'm not an expert on high alcohol intake either. I didn't know it raised HDL.
The first article noted that "that low cholesterol increases the hazard of the less common but potentially devastating hemorrhagic strokes that result from burst blood vessels in the brain."
That's true. It isn't common, like heart attacks and blood clots in the brain are, and it's thought that plaque actually keeps weak vessels from bursting. But it's also believed that they were weakened by years of exposure to high blood pressure from high salt intake and a diet low in high-nutrient foods with omega-3 fats (a diet high in processed foods, in other words). You rarely see them in people who eat diets rich in whole fresh plants.
> eating a specific diet - perfect. But in my opinion, most nutritionists are missing the central point
> of eating: it should be nurishment for the body and for the soul.
Well, I think we just arrived at the crux of the issue and the reason for such high emotions. Eating cheesecake with a thick topping of whipped cream is thoroughly nourishing to the soul for many people. Without cheesecake, maybe they get depressed or live unhappy lives.
What makes me happy is vibrant health, not cheesecake. That's what's great about a free society: you get to choose what makes you happy! :ivar
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
Heheh.
I really appreciate how Baldy can answer these things. I just don't know as much.
The one thing I'm absolutely convinced of when it comes to nutrition: we believe what we want to believe. My friend and I will always have to agree to disagree, although we DO agree on 95%, that a diet high in whole plant foods is good for you. We just differ on the meat/dairy/fat aspect of it.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
That doesn't mean that there isn't a reasonably clear picture out there on what is going on. It just means that from our vantage point in the midst of the white noise of study after study and newspaper articles and "professional opinions" and "some guy with a website" and "my doctor told me..." Everyone is going to latch on to something and they'll be able to find something or someone, somewhere that will back them up on it. You can find internet sites about anything.
Baldy's a fabulous resource. I've never come across anyone that can wade through an impossible volume of information and give it back passionately but respectfully in a way that's easy for anyone to understand like he can.
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
You are correct in thinking todays veggies are not as nutritious as in eons past, and this is due to the fact that growers super fertilize everything with chemicals.....even our "organic" food is not 100% organic......so yes I do take a B - supplement and find that if I take them at bed time.....I am awake prior to the alarm going off at 5am........what I take is a B - 150 (so all almost all the B's in either 150mcg or 150mgs depending on the
A couple of things I know about B12:
- It is the only water-soluble vitamin that your body can store well. Typically, you have about a 6 month to a year reserve.
- Being deficient can be nasty. You don't want to mess with deficiency.
- I developed tongue lesions about six months ago (an early symptom of B12 deficiency, though it could have been caused by something else), and it put the fear in me so I started taking supplemental B12. They went away.
I don't get B12 in any foods anymore because the only refined foods I really eat are my soymilk, occasional breakfast cereal, and tofu. Some canned beans, etc. but nothing with added vitamins.
So I still supplement when it occurs to me to do so (a few times a week). Each pill is much more than the RDA. A word of warning: A "B complex" vitamin doesn't always contain B12, so read the label!
-Anne
Not just on your vitamins but read every lable of all the processed food you eat......You know it is time for a new diabetic doc when they tell you that protein bars from the wally world and slim fast is okay for you....oh yeah if you want a SUGAR HIGH........I even read the labels on plastic wrapped (bagged) food items......you never know what chemicals are put where.......Grocery shopping can be scary at times..........
:yikes
I know eating butter out of the packet is bad for me...i also know constant exercise is good for me & everything else lies in between at different points on a graph. People must understand its balance/variation (genetics) & moderation that runs us and determines our health.
I'd second your thought, Mike. I can't believe how hard it is to get what seems like a modern, science-backed answers to so many of these questions. Baldy, your time to explain this to us and to offer references to other information that we can read and study ourselves is massively appreciated. I happen to be the kind of person that likes to hear things explained, then go read for myself, see if I understand it all and then see if it makes sense to me. Then, I am often tested when I need to explain it to others (like my wife or other family members who are now also interested).
So, thanks from me too, Baldy! Your efforts to explain this stuff and provide information we can consume ourselves is much appreciated.
Unlike most business issues, this actually is (or at least could be) a life or death topic.
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Always include a link to your site when posting a question
The link I meant to include had hard statistics that none of us would like to believe:
"This study, from scientists at the University of Manchester, analyzed 141 articles involving 282,137 cancer cases and 20 different types of malignancies to determine the cancer risk associated with a 5 kilogram-per-meter-squared increase in BMI, roughly the increase that would bump a person from middle-normal weight into overweight.
In men, such an increase in BMI raised the risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma by 52 percent, thyroid cancer by 33 percent, and colon and kidney cancer by 24 percent each."
The source was Michael Thune, head of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society. He's not a minister. Sorry for the confusion.
'sokay...there is a giant as yet un-named asteroid made of soy & butter heading for earth as we type. Ive got my big spoon out.
Is this the supplement you buy for B12?
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I put a handful of pumpkin seeds on my salad, probably 5 days a week. Hope that's enough. Don't want to run out!
EDIT: Oh, and a can of chickpeas about 5 days a week, too! phew.
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John, I never responded about your link to Uffe Ravnskov and his book, The Cholesterol Myths. I'm very aware of him and read some of his English-language papers, but to be really honest I wonder what point he's trying to make.
For example, here's a recent short, easy-to-read paper, The Retreat of the Diet-Heart Hypothesis. What does the title mean? I dunno, but here's an excerpt:
(Hu and Willet conducted Harvard's Nurses Health Study.)
If the point of that paragraph is to say, "The fat % of your intake doesn't matter," it's a fair point. Nuts are high in fat. But the rest of the paper seems intent on casting doubt on Hu and Willet's dietary recommendations. "it is elementary that epidemiological evidence cannot be used to establish causality, but only to create hypotheses." Fine, then it's just Hu and Willet's hypothesis that veggies are good for you. I can deal.
He said, "There is much evidence to suggest that omega-3 fatty acids have
a beneficial influence on cardiovascular disease." Then why the title, "Retreat of the Diet-Heart Hypothesis"? I might substitute the word advance for retreat.
His job is independent researcher. I actually think that means unemployed. I don't see him publishing research, just publishing critiques of research from people like Willet.
His leading favorable review, which he and Amazon still point to, is from Stephen Byrnes, who shared his views. Dr. Byrnes died of massive stroke in his early 40s a few years ago.
His book is critical of the cholesterol hypothesis but does not give a hypothesis for what causes heart disease.
He says on his website that you cannot lower your cholesterol except with drugs.
He discounts the Framingham Heart Study because the correlation between heart attacks and cholesterol level is only 0.36, but doesn't mention the greatest finding of the study: no one has observed coronary disease when total cholestrol is below 150.
If he's right about Willet not being able to conclude that veggies are good for you, okay, then what is? He doesn't say. Guess we'll just have to chomp veggies until he suggests something.
Thanks. I went through a bunch of what he says again and he appears to just want to shoot everything down without actually suggesting any answers himself which leaves me incredibly unsatisfied.
He does raise a bunch of interesting questions about the Framingham study (like what methods were use to select which deaths would be autopsied to measure atherosclerosis and were the selection methods unbiased), but not in a way that you can tell there's actually a problem, just in a way that they are questions that aren't answered in what he's read about the study. He likes to imply that the fact that these questions haven't been written about means the study is flawed, but there's no way to tell if that's actually the case without getting the answers to those questions.
I also KNOW that my own cholesterol level has been dramatically lowered through diet and exercise so he's clearly wrong in his point #5. I don't need any study to prove that because I've done that one myself on myself and the results were big.
He and other opponents of a linkage between cholesterol and heart disease like to say that one can't really tell if it's the cholesterol that causes the problem or the activities that led to the cholesterol level. I say, who cares. If you do the completely natural and low risk activities (healthy diet and exercise, no smoking, reduce stress, etc...) that happen to lead to a lower cholesterol level, you will enjoy better health. I don't need to argue about whether it's the lower cholesterol level or other benefits achieved because of the same activities. In either case, you are enjoying better health which is the objective.
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For those that are interested:
An overall Framingham Study web site.
Score sheets for predicting your coronary heart disease risk.
Significant research discoveries in the study.
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In the last few years some remarkable books have been published like The China Study and Omnivore's Dilemma. Personally, I feel that the biggest breakthrough of The China Study is to get Colin Campbell, it's author, speaking to the public in English instead of to the scientific community in Geek. Maybe his son deserves the credit for co-authoring it.
The guys who got traction, like Dr. Atkins, The Weston Price Foundation, and the various popular diet gurus, actively sent out press releases, appeared on radio and TV, and partnered with food companies to make products that go on supermarket shelves.
The great thing about books like The China Study and The Ominivore's Dilemma, is they're hard to discredit. How do you disprove the statement, "No one with total cholestrol below 150 is known to have coronary disease"? You have to find some cases. How do you disprove, "Get your calories from whole vegetables, fruits, nuts, and legumes and your cholesterol will fall to 170 or below"? You have to find people who really did get their calories that way and didn't see the drop.
I've seen two guys take a swing at The China Study, but they couldn't seem to land blows.