OT: "What the Heck Should I Eat?"

[rumble_lion]

Rumble, we finally found common ground!

Our common diet is responsible for a lot other things like cardo, stroke, liver diseases, depression, and much more. What angers me is in the 15 years of a massive healthcare debate no one ever mentions this. If they attack this issue we could cut our healthcare costs in half.

This is long but very good.

 

[Op2]

----
Sorry you don't like his terminology. People easily understand what he means when he says 'real food' vs 'processed food'. I don't like avocados but that is still 'real food' in his and any definition. And there are different levels of 'processed food'. I can grind up a steak and have ground beef, which is processed but still good for ya. But if I add salt, food colors to make it more appealing, a chemical preservative so it lasts longer on the shelf, a binding agent and who knows what else, it is now processed to the point it is not as healthy as pure ground beef.

And yep, plants make their own pesticides. Thats why herbs have such strong flavors. And many medicines have been developed from plant chemicals. But you don't see plants with polychlorinated b-phenol esters or the other complex synthetic chemicals added to foods. And naturally raised animals have low levels of hormones compared to ones that are fed hormones, antibiotics, and other stuff to boost their growth. And many of those are artificial hormones.

Processed foods aren't necessarily bad per se but instead it's just that most processed foods they currently make aren't healthy. Processing is just applying technology to food.

So processed foods might be good but the ones we have now aren't? Fine. If people start rejecting the crap on the market now then the food industry will respond with better food. Like Micky Ds offering salads and other healthy meals. Just need people to make better choices/
.
And we have to try something. Our healthcare system is going bankrupt taking care people that are slowly killing themselves eating garbage. I do not expect everyone to suddenly stop eating junk food and high carb garbage.

Sorry if 'better' is so difficult. No need to sing silly songs or hold hands or 'mellowing' Just trying to help people.

"And there are different levels of 'processed food'. I can grind up a steak and have ground beef, which is processed but still good for ya. But if I add salt, food colors to make it more appealing, a chemical preservative so it lasts longer on the shelf, a binding agent and who knows what else, it is now processed to the point it is not as healthy as pure ground beef."

You're implying that simply doing something to food (processing) makes it worse and I don't think that is NECESSARILY the case. The implication is that food is best in its natural state and again, I don't think that's necessarily the case nor upon inspection does it make sense that it would be. Why would we be able to improve everything else with technology but when it comes to food we just have to take it as is, as if it's already perfect? (That doesn't even get into the topic that the "natural" food we eat is already a product of humans intervening in nature, which is a whole other topic.)

So we add salt to the beef. Does that make it worse? Well if we're getting too much salt it does. OTOH, we need salt to live so if we're getting too little salt then adding salt helps it. And of course within that, there is a lot if individual variation in how much salt we need.

And then maybe we add preservatives and a binding agent. Why is that NECESSARILY bad? The food may even already have preservatives and binding agents in it. Anything, natural or synthetic, that preserves is a preservative and anything that causes binding is a binding agent. Whether it's good or bad or indifferent is another story.

But the best example in this sense is food coloring. Check out the link below. A high school chemistry teacher in Australia did this. It is a (partial) list of the ingredients..chemicals...whatever you want to call it, in a strawberry. (He has also done this for eggs and bananas and some other foods).

https://jameskennedymonash.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/ingredients-of-an-all-natural-strawberry/

Look at the "colors" section. The things listed are what gives strawberries their color. After all, SOMETHING has to give it its color, right? Well, google the things in that list. Some of them are food additives used for coloring. When they're used as food additives they're synthetic and when they occur in the strawberry they're natural, and yet they're the exact same thing! We have this notion that what occurs naturally in food belongs in one class of things and synthetic stuff we add to food is in another class when in reality they're often the same thing.

That said, not all food additives occur naturally (I assume). Some things are discovered and created and added by humans. But again, that doesn't NECESSARILY make them bad.


People that want to sell you food have an incentive to make you want to buy it. That could mean making it taste good so you don't think about whether it's healthy for you. It could mean trying to nudge the Fed food regulators into allowing changes that will result in them (the food sellers) making more money even if it means making the food less safe. And it could also mean making people that food that is "natural" and "pure" is automatically more healthy for you. But in the end, whether something is good or bad for you is determined by what happens to your body after you put it in your mouth.

 

[Op2]

Here are some flags from that video. Using the phrase "real food." You hear that one a lot. It's a way of defining as bad anything you don't like. Any food is real food. Period.

It's pretty easy. Real food = bananas, oranges, beans, legumes, kale, carrots, etc.

Not real food or manufactured food like substances = ice cream, Pepsi, Twinkies, donuts, cake, cookies etc.

Plants develop pesticides as a means of defense against pests and when doing so they don't test themselves to make sure the pesticides they're developing aren't harmful to humans.

We have evolved over thousands of generations eating plants. A lot of the plant pesticides have beneficial effects on our health.

Here is a sample:

Carotenoids
(such as beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein, zeaxanthin) Red, orange and green fruits and vegetables including broccoli, carrots, cooked tomatoes, leafy greens, sweet potatoes, winter squash, apricots, cantaloupe, oranges and watermelon May inhibit cancer cell growth, work as antioxidants and improve immune response

Flavonoids
(such as anthocyanins and quercetin) Apples, citrus fruits, onions, soybeans and soy products (tofu, soy milk, edamame, etc.), coffee and tea May inhibit inflammation and tumor growth; may aid immunity and boost production of detoxifying enzymes in the body

Indoles and Glucosinolates
(sulforaphane) Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, kale, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts) May induce detoxification of carcinogens, limit production of cancer-related hormones, block carcinogens and prevent tumor growth

Inositol
(phytic acid) Bran from corn, oats, rice, rye and wheat, nuts, soybeans and soy products (tofu, soy milk, edamame, etc.) May retard cell growth and work as antioxidant

Isoflavones
(daidzein and genistein) Soybeans and soy products (tofu, soy milk, edamame, etc.) May inhibit tumor growth, limit production of cancer-related hormones and generally work as antioxidant

Isothiocyanates Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, kale, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts) May induce detoxification of carcinogens, block tumor growth and work as antioxidants

Polyphenols
(such as ellagic acid and resveratrol) Green tea, grapes, wine, berries, citrus fruits, apples, whole grains and peanuts May prevent cancer formation, prevent inflammation and work as antioxidants

Terpenes
(such as perillyl alcohol, limonene, carnosol) Cherries, citrus fruit peel, rosemary May protect cells from becoming cancerous, slow cancer cell growth, strengthen immune function, limit production of cancer-related hormones, fight viruses, work as antioxidants

Mellowing out together is a good thing. And eating the foods that doctor proposes is good too. But that doesn't mean it's The Way. Processed foods aren't necessarily bad per se but instead it's just that most processed foods they currently make aren't healthy.

Um yeah, so don't eat them. That's the whole point.

Processing is just applying technology to food. Why would that magically always be bad when applying technology is so beneficial on other aspects of life?

Why don't we just eat the food as is? What else do you need to do a carrot? We have been eating them just fine for eons.

Yes, people should eat more like that doctor says but the problem is that eating that way costs more time and money a

Getting sick and putting yourself into the US healthcare system costs and incredible amount of time.

Beans, legumes and most vegetables are the cheapest foods you can buy.

In the real world, if you don't eat real food you starve to death real fast. OTOH, you can eat little or no "real food" by the definition of people that use the term "real food" and survive for decades. Ice cream and donuts is as real a food as kale and bananas. How healthy any particular food is is another issue. But a thing (whether we're talking about food or something else) isn't automatically healthier for you if's "natural."

Note that when we were refer to foods as natural we automatically exclude natural things that would harm us if we ate them. So we call an apple "natural food" but we don't refer to the apple tree bark, leaves or branches as "natural food." If you walk outside, everything is "natural" but 99% of it is bad for us to eat.

Apples, by the way, contain formaldehyde, which is embalming fluid. I don't mean apples grown with "chemicals," I mean regular, normal, natural apples. It's a small amount and it doesn't harm us, but the point is that these "natural" foods aren't things designed to be optimal for us, rather they're just stuff we eat and have eaten that provided enough nutrition to keep us going. Good enough doesn't mean best. Some other "natural" foods contain formaldehyde too.

And as far as bananas, it's stretching the definition to even call them "natural." (BTW, try defining "natural" sometime. It can quickly get slippery.) The bananas we get from the store don't grow naturally. If all humans died tomorrow then bananas as we know them now would cease to exist, other than the occassional mutant. Look up wild bananas and you see that they're small, disgusting looking things that fit in your hand and have seeds throughout.

Most plants we eat now didn't exist until several thousand or sometimes even several hundred years ago. An ear of corn was originally the size of you finger. When people figured out how to crossbreed plants several thousand years ago they took advantage of it and crossbred stuff left and right and didn't worry that they were mixing genes of different things, which is interesting since if today scientists change one specific gene whose function they know, some people go crazy.

You mentioned we've been eating carrots for eons so I looked it up. The carrot we typically eat today didn't exist until the 1600s. It was derived from something else, which was in turn derived from something else, yadda, yadda. There's a whole history for carrots and every other food. Pick a food and Wiki it and you'll find out all kinds of stuff, probably including that it didn't exist until humans crossbred something else and created it, and relatively recently in human terms.

 

[Nitwit97]

Avoid sugars and dairy

Everything else, just don’t be a pig

We all die one day,

 

[kijanacat]

I have heard a number of doctors on the cutting edge of this debate say that obesity is the result of our problems and not the cause.

 

[aquapong]

So all I need to do is eat better and exercise? Who would’ve thought.

 

[Frabjous]

Satchel Page said he did not eat fried foods because they ‘angry up the blood.’ Good advice then and now.

 

[BobPSU92]

If it smells like fish, eat it.

 

[SUPERTODD]

interrobang; Brilliant observation. Good health habits...nutrition, exercise, avoiding society's poisons...do not guarantee anything. Its about increasing your odds and making what days you get more enjoyable. We all die someday, we get sick. But a good lifestyle not only increases your odds of avoiding many illnesses, it makes you more likely to recover well when bad news hits.

eidolon; I am about as libertarian as one could be. I don't give a damn what people do as long as they leave me alone and take responsibility for their actions. I workout, have an organic garden, avoid the poisons in the world, and stay healthy. For decades never had a single health problem. Yet my insurance bills subsidized the people that did all sorts of crap....booze, drugs, eat like a horse, eat tons of junk food, are obese.....

Put a tax on all the bad stuff....alcohol, opioids, tobacco, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, junk food...equal to the societal costs that result from the consumption of those things. Let the users of those pay for the damage they do to themselves.

Hell, even make the taxes a little higher to help take of people that fall ill in spite of avoiding those poisons.

Give them all the free choice they want. Just make them responsible for the damage they do.

I don’t think you have any idea what a libertarian really is or is not. Libertarians believe in limiting the power of government. A proper libertarian response would be to allow people to make their own choices and live with the consequences. A progressive response, which you expressed, would be to imagine we are all responsible for one another’s health and tax things we don’t like to control “undesirable behavior.” Libertarians don’t try to determine what the “bad stuff” is for other people. We just leave you alone to determine that for yourself.

 

[BobPSU92]

Vanilla latte and blueberry scones. Classy and scrumptious. Then embark on a brisk constitutional.

 

[Art]

A healthy diet of bearded clam is low fat

Not at this table it ain't

 

[BobPSU92]

Be right back.

 

[KnightWhoSaysNit]

I don’t think you have any idea what a libertarian really is or is not. Libertarians believe in limiting the power of government. A proper libertarian response would be to allow people to make their own choices and live with the consequences. A progressive response, which you expressed, would be to imagine we are all responsible for one another’s health and tax things we don’t like to control “undesirable behavior.” Libertarians don’t try to determine what the “bad stuff” is for other people. We just leave you alone to determine that for yourself.

We can thank the three major news networks (FOX,CNN,MSNBC) for the fact that people do not understand their own politics, much less the consequences of the beliefs that they do tend to espouse.

 

[The Spin Meister]

"And there are different levels of 'processed food'. I can grind up a steak and have ground beef, which is processed but still good for ya. But if I add salt, food colors to make it more appealing, a chemical preservative so it lasts longer on the shelf, a binding agent and who knows what else, it is now processed to the point it is not as healthy as pure ground beef."

You're implying that simply doing something to food (processing) makes it worse and I don't think that is NECESSARILY the case. The implication is that food is best in its natural state and again, I don't think that's necessarily the case nor upon inspection does it make sense that it would be. Why would we be able to improve everything else with technology but when it comes to food we just have to take it as is, as if it's already perfect? (That doesn't even get into the topic that the "natural" food we eat is already a product of humans intervening in nature, which is a whole other topic.)

So we add salt to the beef. Does that make it worse? Well if we're getting too much salt it does. OTOH, we need salt to live so if we're getting too little salt then adding salt helps it. And of course within that, there is a lot if individual variation in how much salt we need.

And then maybe we add preservatives and a binding agent. Why is that NECESSARILY bad? The food may even already have preservatives and binding agents in it. Anything, natural or synthetic, that preserves is a preservative and anything that causes binding is a binding agent. Whether it's good or bad or indifferent is another story.

But the best example in this sense is food coloring. Check out the link below. A high school chemistry teacher in Australia did this. It is a (partial) list of the ingredients..chemicals...whatever you want to call it, in a strawberry. (He has also done this for eggs and bananas and some other foods).

https://jameskennedymonash.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/ingredients-of-an-all-natural-strawberry/

Look at the "colors" section. The things listed are what gives strawberries their color. After all, SOMETHING has to give it its color, right? Well, google the things in that list. Some of them are food additives used for coloring. When they're used as food additives they're synthetic and when they occur in the strawberry they're natural, and yet they're the exact same thing! We have this notion that what occurs naturally in food belongs in one class of things and synthetic stuff we add to food is in another class when in reality they're often the same thing.

That said, not all food additives occur naturally (I assume). Some things are discovered and created and added by humans. But again, that doesn't NECESSARILY make them bad.


People that want to sell you food have an incentive to make you want to buy it. That could mean making it taste good so you don't think about whether it's healthy for you. It could mean trying to nudge the Fed food regulators into allowing changes that will result in them (the food sellers) making more money even if it means making the food less safe. And it could also mean making people that food that is "natural" and "pure" is automatically more healthy for you. But in the end, whether something is good or bad for you is determined by what happens to your body after you put it in your mouth.

---
Go buy a twinkie, read the ingredients, and get back to me.

 

[The Spin Meister]

I don’t think you have any idea what a libertarian really is or is not. Libertarians believe in limiting the power of government. A proper libertarian response would be to allow people to make their own choices and live with the consequences. A progressive response, which you expressed, would be to imagine we are all responsible for one another’s health and tax things we don’t like to control “undesirable behavior.” Libertarians don’t try to determine what the “bad stuff” is for other people. We just leave you alone to determine that for yourself.

Well then a true Libertarian would say let people eat and do what ever the hell they want. But if they drink a gallon of Coke/day, engorge themselves on chips, Twinkies, ice cream, smoke, drink alcohol, and more than the hell with them when they get diabetes, heart disease, lose a leg or have stroke. Let them live...or die... with the consequences. Guess that would make you happier.

 

[lurkerlion]

this. if you want to talk about food and health, the discussion has to begin with sugar and grain. A grain and sugar based diet is great for fattening up cattle but it shouldn't be what humans eat. Obesity is the cause of most health problems in the US -- high blood pressure, reflux, diabetes, heart disease and abdominal cancers are all largely obesity-related. And obesity is the result of a diet too weighted toward sugar and grain. The solution is pretty simple -- just eat less of the things that make us fat and sick. But easier said than done.... The sugar and grain industry are very powerful and fighting hard to maintain market share.

You had throw that last sentence in to intimate a sinister conspiracy.

Avoid sugars and dairy

Everything else, just don’t be a pig

We all die one day,

curious. Why no dairy. Since the 1980s dairy consumption has steadily declined while obesity and diabetes have exploded. Do you have an actual double blind study or simply a theory fueled by people with agendas unrelated to nutrition.

 

[Op2]

We can thank the three major news networks (FOX,CNN,MSNBC) for the fact that people do not understand their own politics, much less the consequences of the beliefs that they do tend to espouse.

I didn't realize just how awful the cable news networks were until I got rid of them and then after some time away got a chance to see them again. I wish I learned earlier so I wouldn't have wasted so much time on them over the years.

 

[The Spin Meister]

You had throw that last sentence in to intimate a sinister conspiracy.

curious. Why no dairy. Since the 1980s dairy consumption has steadily declined while obesity and diabetes have exploded. Do you have an actual double blind study or simply a theory fueled by people with agendas unrelated to nutrition.

-----
There IS a sinister conspiracy, not unlike that of big tobacco. The sugar industry has powerful lobbyists that prohibit the importation of cheaper foreign sugar. They also insist on subsidies. They also influence FDA recommendations and prevent the feds acting against big sugar in any way.

Big corn is also very powerful. Try restricting its use in any way, or even issuing guidelines to educate people on the dangers of massive consumption of corn fructose, and watch all the big R Congressmen go bat sh!t crazy. Big Ag is as powerful as Big Oil, maybe more so.

 

[PSUeng]

The real question is Beer OK since they use processes to make it. And if so, if acid rain fell on the hops can I still drink it

 

[lurkerlion]

-----
There IS a sinister conspiracy, not unlike that of big tobacco. The sugar industry has powerful lobbyists that prohibit the importation of cheaper foreign sugar. They also insist on subsidies. They also influence FDA recommendations and prevent the feds acting against big sugar in any way.

Big corn is also very powerful. Try restricting its use in any way, or even issuing guidelines to educate people on the dangers of massive consumption of corn fructose, and watch all the big R Congressmen go bat sh!t crazy. Big Ag is as powerful as Big Oil, maybe more so.

So you think big corn can afford better lobbyists than big oil? Do you think people need to be warned not to drink gallons of pop? NYC simply limits your consumption without any education.

Companies and trade associations promote their products. Big surprise or sinister conspiracy? We have enough conspiracy theories right now.

 

[SUPERTODD]

Well then a true Libertarian would say let people eat and do what ever the hell they want. But if they drink a gallon of Coke/day, engorge themselves on chips, Twinkies, ice cream, smoke, drink alcohol, and more than the hell with them when they get diabetes, heart disease, lose a leg or have stroke. Let them live...or die... with the consequences. Guess that would make you happier.

It isn’t a question of what does or does not make me happy. My happiness is irrelevant. It is about what is and is not just. If a person does not have to pay the consequences for his own actions others most certainly will.

 

[rumble_lion]

In the real world, if you don't eat real food you starve to death real fast. OTOH, you can eat little or no "real food" by the definition of people that use the term "real food" and survive for decades. Ice cream and donuts is as real a food as kale and bananas. How healthy any particular food is is another issue. But a thing (whether we're talking about food or something else) isn't automatically healthier for you if's "natural."

Note that when we were refer to foods as natural we automatically exclude natural things that would harm us if we ate them. So we call an apple "natural food" but we don't refer to the apple tree bark, leaves or branches as "natural food." If you walk outside, everything is "natural" but 99% of it is bad for us to eat.

Apples, by the way, contain formaldehyde, which is embalming fluid. I don't mean apples grown with "chemicals," I mean regular, normal, natural apples. It's a small amount and it doesn't harm us, but the point is that these "natural" foods aren't things designed to be optimal for us, rather they're just stuff we eat and have eaten that provided enough nutrition to keep us going. Good enough doesn't mean best. Some other "natural" foods contain formaldehyde too.

And as far as bananas, it's stretching the definition to even call them "natural." (BTW, try defining "natural" sometime. It can quickly get slippery.) The bananas we get from the store don't grow naturally. If all humans died tomorrow then bananas as we know them now would cease to exist, other than the occassional mutant. Look up wild bananas and you see that they're small, disgusting looking things that fit in your hand and have seeds throughout.

Most plants we eat now didn't exist until several thousand or sometimes even several hundred years ago. An ear of corn was originally the size of you finger. When people figured out how to crossbreed plants several thousand years ago they took advantage of it and crossbred stuff left and right and didn't worry that they were mixing genes of different things, which is interesting since if today scientists change one specific gene whose function they know, some people go crazy.

You mentioned we've been eating carrots for eons so I looked it up. The carrot we typically eat today didn't exist until the 1600s. It was derived from something else, which was in turn derived from something else, yadda, yadda. There's a whole history for carrots and every other food. Pick a food and Wiki it and you'll find out all kinds of stuff, probably including that it didn't exist until humans crossbred something else and created it, and relatively recently in human terms.

In the real world, if you don't eat real food you starve to death real fast.

Really? How did humans 10,000 years ago survive?

OTOH, you can eat little or no "real food" by the definition of people that use the term "real food" and survive for decades.

You can be obese, have diabetes, suffer a heart attack and survive. Myself, I'd rather live a good healthy life.

There are some people that have smoked 2 packs a day and lived to be 90. So by your reasoning everyone can smoke without suffering any health issues.

Ice cream and donuts is as real a food as kale and bananas. How healthy any particular food is is another issue. But a thing (whether we're talking about food or something else) isn't automatically healthier for you if's "natural."

Right, eating donuts and ice cream is same as eating kale and bananas? Wait, what?

Note that when we were refer to foods as natural we automatically exclude natural things that would harm us if we ate them. So we call an apple "natural food" but we don't refer to the apple tree bark, leaves or branches as "natural food." If you walk outside, everything is "natural" but 99% of it is bad for us to eat.

Yeah, we are talking about natural foods. Not tree bark, or stones. Pretty sure most people get that without needing to have it spelled out.

Apples, by the way, contain formaldehyde, which is embalming fluid. I don't mean apples grown with "chemicals," I mean regular, normal, natural apples. It's a small amount and it doesn't harm us, but the point is that these "natural" foods aren't things designed to be optimal for us,

You finally get something correct. Natural foods are not designed for us to eat. We are designed to eat them. It's called evolution.

You mentioned we've been eating carrots for eons so I looked it up. The carrot we typically eat today didn't exist until the 1600s. It was derived from something else, which was in turn derived from something else, yadda, yadda. There's a whole history for carrots and every other food.

When we eat a carrot we get lots of phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals and fiber. All these things promote good health in our bodies. What does your body get for digesting a Twinkie?

 

[rumble_lion]

Avoid sugars and dairy

Everything else, just don’t be a pig

We all die one day,

Avoid animal products and processed foods.

If it has parents don't eat it. If it comes from a plant don't eat it, if it is a plant eat it.

 

[rumble_lion]

I have heard a number of doctors on the cutting edge of this debate say that obesity is the result of our problems and not the cause.

Were they being paid by the meat, diary and egg industries?

 

[rumble_lion]

So all I need to do is eat better and exercise? Who would’ve thought.

Pretty much. Although most people are addicted to fat, salt and sugar so changing to a healthy diet is not easy.

 

[Nitwit97]

Avoid animal products and processed foods.

If it has parents don't eat it. If it comes from a plant don't eat it, if it is a plant eat it.

I am not against eating animals.

Follow the 10, 000 year rule, if it wasn’t here ten thousand years ago, don’t eat it.

 

[rumble_lion]

Satchel Page said he did not eat fried foods because they ‘angry up the blood.’ Good advice then and now.

Well oil is a highly processed food. And it gets even more unhealthy when you heat it. Those deep fryers keep the oil at high temperatures for hours and hours. Then you drop some fries in them that act like little oil spunges..... Yum!

 

[rumble_lion]

I am not against eating animals.

Follow the 10, 000 year rule, if it wasn’t here ten thousand years ago, don’t eat it.

Everyone has to choose their own path.

 

[lurkerlion]

Everyone has to choose their own path.

Good luck on your path, because you will be grazing on it.

Can you answer the paradoxical question if we all follow your path: what happens to all the animals that you “spare?” Man does compete fairly for food. No animal (including domesticated) would be needed or safe from extermination. Who would care for the millions of unnecessary livestock? They would probably just be incinerated.

 

[rumble_lion]

Good luck on your path, because you will be grazing on it.

Can you answer the paradoxical question if we all follow your path: what happens to all the animals that you “spare?” Man does compete fairly for food. No animal (including domesticated) would be needed or safe from extermination. Who would care for the millions of unnecessary livestock? They would probably just be incinerated.

Good luck on your path, because you will be grazing on it.

Been on my path for 2 years now, it's going great thanks. Lost 30 pounds and was able to stop taking high cholesterol medication.

Man does compete fairly for food. No animal (including domesticated) would be needed or safe from extermination. Who would care for the millions of unnecessary livestock? They would probably just be incinerated.

You think everyone that eats meat will stop eating it on the same day? That's not very likely is it?

 

[lurkerlion]

Good luck on your path, because you will be grazing on it.

Been on my path for 2 years now, it's going great thanks. Lost 30 pounds and was able to stop taking high cholesterol medication.

Man does compete fairly for food. No animal (including domesticated) would be needed or safe from extermination. Who would care for the millions of unnecessary livestock? They would probably just be incinerated.

You think everyone that eats meat will stop eating it on the same day? That's not very likely is it?

Whether instantly or gradually the result would be the same. Mass extinctions of species that compete for the same food sources.

 

[rumble_lion]

Whether instantly or gradually the result would be the same. Mass extinctions of species that compete for the same food sources.

What in the world are you talking about? We would just gradually stop breeding animals to eat.

 

[lurkerlion]

What in the world are you talking about? We would just gradually stop breeding animals to eat.

Exactly. And eventually there would be no cattle, pigs, chickens or sheep. The result is still extinction.

 

[rumble_lion]

Exactly. And eventually there would be no cattle, pigs, chickens or sheep. The result is still extinction.

Wait a minute, did cattle, pigs, chicken and sheep exist before we starting breeding them for food?

You are so worried about the welfare of these animals you pay money to have them killed so you can eat them?

 

[KnightWhoSaysNit]

Exactly. And eventually there would be no cattle, pigs, chickens or sheep. The result is still extinction.

Actually, the animals you list, and many close cousins, are doing quite well in the wild, especially in areas that are not dominated by humans. Look it up, or maybe just see for yourself by visiting some wild areas that haven't been ruined by humans.

Though I might agree that those born on farms might have trouble surviving at this point, these animals certainly were not created by farmers, nor are all living in captivity.

 

[lurkerlion]

Wait a minute, did cattle, pigs, chicken and sheep exist before we starting breeding them for food?

You are so worried about the welfare of these animals you pay money to have them killed so you can eat them?

Yes they existed and we hunted them and ate them. Mastodons too.

My question above is the paradox which vegan advocates cannot answer. In an era where most land is owned and used, wild animals have few havens.formerly domesticated animals would have nowhere to go. Pristine yards and sprawling golf courses are incompatible with a flock of sheep.

 

[lurkerlion]

Actually, the animals you list, and many close cousins, are doing quite well in the wild, especially in areas that are not dominated by humans. Look it up, or maybe just see for yourself by visiting some wild areas that haven't been ruined by humans.

Though I might agree that those born on farms might have trouble surviving at this point, these animals certainly were not created by farmers, nor are all living in captivity.

Sure, some animals are surviving in the wild. Too bad wild places are fewer and fewer. Too bad those animals would also compete for the same foods that would need to be grown for man. As I said, man plays to win. Since there would be no need for cows, they would be reduced in numbers to near extinction.

Surely we can agree that domesticated animals would be counted in thousands not millions.

For the moment man allows animals to roam free in some wild areas. Do not assume that would not change in your new world.

 

[Op2]

In the real world, if you don't eat real food you starve to death real fast.

Really? How did humans 10,000 years ago survive?

OTOH, you can eat little or no "real food" by the definition of people that use the term "real food" and survive for decades.

You can be obese, have diabetes, suffer a heart attack and survive. Myself, I'd rather live a good healthy life.

There are some people that have smoked 2 packs a day and lived to be 90. So by your reasoning everyone can smoke without suffering any health issues.

Ice cream and donuts is as real a food as kale and bananas. How healthy any particular food is is another issue. But a thing (whether we're talking about food or something else) isn't automatically healthier for you if's "natural."

Right, eating donuts and ice cream is same as eating kale and bananas? Wait, what?

Note that when we were refer to foods as natural we automatically exclude natural things that would harm us if we ate them. So we call an apple "natural food" but we don't refer to the apple tree bark, leaves or branches as "natural food." If you walk outside, everything is "natural" but 99% of it is bad for us to eat.

Yeah, we are talking about natural foods. Not tree bark, or stones. Pretty sure most people get that without needing to have it spelled out.

Apples, by the way, contain formaldehyde, which is embalming fluid. I don't mean apples grown with "chemicals," I mean regular, normal, natural apples. It's a small amount and it doesn't harm us, but the point is that these "natural" foods aren't things designed to be optimal for us,

You finally get something correct. Natural foods are not designed for us to eat. We are designed to eat them. It's called evolution.

You mentioned we've been eating carrots for eons so I looked it up. The carrot we typically eat today didn't exist until the 1600s. It was derived from something else, which was in turn derived from something else, yadda, yadda. There's a whole history for carrots and every other food.

When we eat a carrot we get lots of phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals and fiber. All these things promote good health in our bodies. What does your body get for digesting a Twinkie?

You misrepresented most of what I wrote so badly that I assume you were just typing out of annoyance but I will address one thing on which I get the impression you think is simply correct.

"You finally get something correct. Natural foods are not designed for us to eat. We are designed to eat them. It's called evolution."

No, we are not designed to eat natural foods nor are we designed to do anything (unless perhaps you say God is guiding evolution, in which case the whatever design exists it at a level beyond us to determine).

It our ancestors ate food over a long period of time then the ones that ate food that was better for them were more likely to survive. But that does not mean that that food was OPTIMAL. It just means it was good enough to get us into the next generation.

Almost none of the food we eat now was what our ancestors ate for 90, 95, 99%...I don't know the exact number, whatever, but we eat differently now than did most of our ancestors. For that matter we do lots of things differently now than did most of our ancestors. For most of human history, when everything was "natural," human life expectancy was about 30. Figuring out how to do things better is what makes us live longer.

Figuring out how to crossbreed crop is one of those things that helped us live longer. But because we were able to make crops better by crossbreeding them doesn't mean what we eat today cannot be improved upon. The best thing to eat is something we haven't even thought of yet and I for one do want to keep searching for it instead of saying, okay, the food we eat now is good enough, let's not change anything.

 

[Op2]

Wait a minute, did cattle, pigs, chicken and sheep exist before we starting breeding them for food?

You are so worried about the welfare of these animals you pay money to have them killed so you can eat them?

I don't know the details of those animals before we started breeding them for food but it wouldn't surprise me if they existed in somewhat different forms than they do now. Humans crossbreeding animals made the animals what they're like today. People think the plants and animals we have today were always that way but they weren't. (Specifically, humans created dogs byfeeding, taming, breeding, etc, the least wild wolves.)

In terms of laying eggs, chickens used to lay many fewer eggs until humans intervened. Here's a bit from a doc at Texas A&M. The A in A&M is Agricultural. The problem in our pop culture is that people thing foodies down that the local co-op are more knowledge about than scientists that study this stuff.

https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/mobile...y-unfertilized-eggs-when-that-is-so-wasteful/

Here is a specific line from this that I like.

"All of the agricultural foods we eat, from wheat and rice to beef and milk, are far more nutrient-rich, delicious, and prolific than their ancient, wild predecessors because of human intervention."

 

[KnightWhoSaysNit]

We can be assured of one thing: No matter what or how we eat, if we confine ourselves to this planet, eventually we will run out of resources to support the population. As humans we seem to want everything that tends to grow population -- better medicine, better food, better health, longer lives, more comforts, more sex, and so on. Those are the problems we tend to work. But in reality, if we look at all of the world's most difficult problems, the only real, long-term solution (to all of them) is population control. Resources will run out no matter how efficient we become. The inevitable is simply delayed by improvements in efficiency. We will reach equilibrium like all other species on the earth, and that state is always painful.