Should we be vegan? Short answer: No

[GreenEdge]

Edit: Added the following text

No matter what you believe causes ME/CFS, I think diet has a powerful effect on health, more so than any medication. However nobody wants to be told what to eat; so to help others (instead of attempting to educate or pres-wade) the best I can do is help them to discover the information themselves.

I’ve been looking for a YouTube video by someone who is not pushing any particular agenda or diet and I’ve finally found the right person and chose this video as a good place to start.

Zoe Harcombe has a PhD in public health nutrition. The full title of her thesis is: “An examination of the randomised controlled trial and epidemiological evidence for the introduction of dietary fat recommendations in 1977 and 1983".

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Who is the "We" being referred to?

 

[bensmith]

I can’t anymore. I would if i could.

 

[GreenEdge]

I think we ME/CFS's are the 'canaries in the coal mine'. What's good for us is good for others with poor metabolic health; is good the general population to prevent poor health in the first place.

Zoe Harcombe's other youtube videos are also very good. I just watched Upside Down World of Health Policy w/ Dr. Zoe Harcombe | Peak Human and found it even better than the one in the first post.

She has written many books too : Amazon Books | Dr. Zoe Harcombe

 

[GreenEdge]

Another similar person is: Dr Ben Bikman - A research scientist that's been studying all the ways insulin affects the body.

Choose one of many interviews with Ben on YouTube, he explains how insulin resistance is behind various metabolic diseases.

He has also written a book Why we get sick that pretty much says the same thing 'How insulin resistance is behind all modern metabolic diseases' as well as what you can do about it.

 

[nii4]

This person is not "someone who is not pushing any particular agenda or diet" that's very clear from that lecture. It's clearly targeted at being anti vegan and ignoring all the positive evidence for a plant-based diet. That plus constantly making jokes and using arguments like "if you need to supplement the diet is not good" which isn't based on anything but feel good rhetoric.

https://www.wcrf-uk.org/our-blog/is-zoe-harcombes-advice-based-on-solid-scientific-evidence/

 

[Arius]

Like many people, I was vegan for a few years before I got sick. I fell for the fraudulent and unfortunately ubiquitous health claims (almost all of which are based on Campbell's now thoroughly discredited China study, and the rest of which are probably also invalid because they lack a control group that ate meat without also eating grains [grains being the real villain]).

One of the factors in my illness turned out to be low secretory Immunoglobulin-A (sIgA) - which is basically your guts' first line of defence against parasites and viruses. What causes low sIgA? Protein deficiency. Another issue was that I had an overgrowth in my small intestine of sulphate-reducing bacteria which happen to thrive on soy, which I was not digesting properly but kept eating lots of because my body was starving for protein. Those overgrown bacteria produce way too much hydrogen sulphide (H2S), which is neurotoxic and poisons cells.

I come from a community of vegans, so I know a lot of them. Every single one who has been vegan for more than 7-10 years has a serious, debilitating chronic disease of some sort. FYI, seven to ten years is about how long it takes for a nutrient deficiency to manifest as disease. The lucky ones only got anemia or something easily treated like that. The rest of us languish.

Dr. Myhill has publicly stated that she considers veganism to be a risk factor for developing FM and CFS/ME.

Even if you're not convinced, I think the most GENEROUS thing you can say about veganism is that it's a dangerous gamble. The statistic I read is that 80% of people cannot be vegan long term without serious health consequences. Why take the chance?

 

[mattie]

Plant-based diets and long-term health: findings from the EPIC-Oxford study:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...oxford-study/771ED5439481A68AD92BF40E8B1EF7E6

 

[Rufous McKinney]

I come from a community of vegans, so I know a lot of them. Every single one who has been vegan for more than 7-10 years has a serious, debilitating chronic disease of some sort. FYI, seven to ten years is about how long it takes for a nutrient deficiency to manifest as disease. The lucky ones only got anemia or something easily treated like that. The rest of us languish.

Over fifty years ago, I launched Vegan.

I felt worse and worse as time passed.

I went even more extreme: EHRETS Mucousless DIET and the sanitarium from 1910. Now even an avocado or banana, is banned.

Health and stamina lousy. Pre anorexic. (not yet invented, back then)

Much later, I found myself at retreats, with gourmet vegetarian, catered. I am starving. I am eating and eating and starving. I go find peanut butter hiding on a shelf, and a random egg that was overlooked.

I was advised to do the blood type diet, and I am a type O. I tend to follow that diet quite a bit.

(I have managed to be able to eat some well cooked beans for dinner, so I can at least have a break there)

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Plant-based diets and long-term health: findings from the EPIC-Oxford study:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...oxford-study/771ED5439481A68AD92BF40E8B1EF7E6

I think a shortcoming in these types of studies is that bodies, genetics, blood type, race and ethnicity play roles in food tolerances and what is right for whom.

My body exhibits considerable loss of collagen and connective tissue- likely inducted by the viruses.

so our situation is ATYPICAL. And more extremely atypical.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

It's clearly targeted at being anti vegan and ignoring all the positive evidence for a plant-based diet.

There's a difference between favoring a larger profile of plant based dietary choices, and eliminating all forms of animal proteins, from milk and eggs to meat and fish.

As humans we were hunters long before we were gatherers, and our systems had hundreds of thousands of years surviving on an almost exclusively protein-based diet.

I think the most GENEROUS thing you can say about veganism is that it's a dangerous gamble.

I agree. Any kind of extreme diet, whether veganism or rigidly carbohydrate-sparing, is dangerous.

I think a shortcoming in these types of studies is that bodies, genetics, blood type, race and ethnicity play roles in food tolerances and what is right for whom.

ABSOLUTELY !!! And it's the soft spot in almost all research, regardless of the focus/subject of that research ..... we may all be bipedal humanoids on the outside, but the mechanism that's running that particular human or even group of humans is invisible to the naked eye ....

EDIT .... for irritating OCD-ishness today ...

 

[Rufous McKinney]

I"m thinking Guinea pigs....that perhaps the little charmers could be a sort of perfect small animals that can also be dinner for two.


How did we become so far removed from The Source of our Food? (I could not kill the termite in Bio 1 lab....I had to ask one of my students to do it for me, a privilege TEACHER gets to have (how clever of me to assign this task to an eager male student who dreamed it would improve his grade...)

 

[nii4]

There's a difference between favoring a larger profile of plant based dietary choices, and eliminating all forms of animal proteins, from milk and eggs to meat and fish.

As humans we were hunters long before we were gatherers, and our systems had hundreds of thousands of years surviving on an almost exclusively protein-based diet.

This is simply not true. First of all our diets varied extremely depending on what we could get. And most populations ate a diet mainly consisting of nuts, seeds, berries, tubers and fruit. With the occasional animal protein.

But what we ate thousands of years ago doesn't really matter. Our lifespan was way shorter and the diseases that plague older people during our time didn't matter as much. Like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Diets rich in plants and fruit have been shown over and over to protect against these things and there's a reason we see so many vegans and vegetarians live past their 100s. It's harder to get right because there are some pitfalls, but eliminating all animal products is not impossible and can be very healthy if done right.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

This is simply not true. First of all our diets varied extremely depending on what we could get. And most populations ate a diet mainly consisting of nuts, seeds, berries, tubers and fruit. With the occasional animal protein.

“It was about 2.6 million years ago that meat first became a significant part of the pre-human diet”
Time.com

“It's not a coincidence that the earliest evidence of widespread human meat-eating coincides in the archaeological record with Homo habilis, the “handyman” of early humans.”
History.com

“Habilis comes from some of the earliest cut- and percussion-marked bones, found back to 2.6 million years ago. Scientists usually associate these traces of butchery of large animals, direct evidence of meat and marrow eating, with the earliest appearance of the genus Homo, including H.
Human origins.si.edu

“Humans evolved as super-predators. Our ancestors were highly skilled hunters and meat was widely eaten and highly prized. While hunter-gatherers varied considerably in terms of how much meat they consumed, none of them was vegan. Such diets simply wouldn't have been available or viable options for them anyway.”
The Conversation

But what we ate thousands of years ago doesn't really matter.

Say WHAT ???!!!?!?!?? ….

As far as our diet thousands of years ago, let’s start with MILLIONS. And let’s consider that as modern humans STILL carry DNA from Neanderthals, it’s not a huge leap to considering the fact that our genetic structure was built, MILLIONS (not thousands) of years ago, and for MILLIONS of years thereafter, by meat-eaters, who also ate plants, nuts, and seeds, but survived and thrived largely because of their high protein diets. It’s what built and sustained the human race.

Our lifespan was way shorter and the diseases that plague older people during our time didn't matter as much. Like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

You’ll need to start citing sources for leaps that vast. No one really knows how long the life span of pre-historic man was, altho given the attritions that they faced, it’s seductive to assume that they all died young, but that’s an assumption based on facts not in evidence.

As far as age related diseases and illness, there are zero records from millions of years ago, so again, you’re making an assumption based on facts not in evidence.

We make the same assumptions about Romans, many of whom lived deep into their 80’s, ditto Greeks. We’ve assumed the Middle Ages were also The Dark Ages. This has been proven false as well. History is littered with assumptions made by people, and even 'experts', who were more or less guessing, and who have been proven wrong over and over again.

Diets rich in plants and fruit have been shown over and over to protect against these things and there's a reason we see so many vegans and vegetarians live past their 100s. It's harder to get right because there are some pitfalls, but eliminating all animal products is not impossible and can be very healthy if done right.

Again, please cite your sources for the “…. many vegans and vegetarians (who) live past their hundreds”, skipping, if you would, the Bulgarian hill dwellers who seem to live largely on yogurt.

And there are more than “ …some pitfalls …”. By its protein sparing nature vegan and vegetarian diets are difficult to sustain while still getting enough high-quality protein. For some people, this can lead to moderate to severe health consequences, cause we’re not all cut from the same bolt doncha’ know.

“Although vegetarian eating does have a stellar health reputation, recent news has focused on what could be bad about vegetarian diets and more stringent vegan plans, including reports of stroke risk, harms to brain health, hair loss, and depression.”
WebMD.com

“Vegetarians had a 13% lower risk of heart disease than meat eaters. But they also had a 20% higher rate of stroke than meat eaters.”
webMD.com

“Are vegetarians weaker? Yup, eating a plant-based diet makes you much weaker than meat-eaters. A new study, published in BMC Medicine, found that vegans have lower calcium and protein intakes which makes them more susceptible to fractures anywhere in the body.”
esquiremag.ph>life>health-and-fitness

“People who don't eat meat are especially vulnerable to neurotransmitter imbalances, which can result in problems like depression, anxiety, and hyperactivity”
breakingmuscle.com

“Full vegetarian diets during pregnancy were associated with infants smaller for their gestational age—the stage of pregnancy at which they were born—compared to those born to women whose diets did not restrict meat, chicken, or fish”
nichd.nih.gov

“People following vegetarian diets tend to have lowered levels of white blood cells, our natural defender cells. This is the case for vegetarian diets including vegan, lacto-vegetarian and lacto-ovo vegetarian. Having very low levels of these cells is not ideal as it can affect the body's ability to fight infection”
theconversation.com


AND FOR ALONGER ARGUMENT REGARDING THE CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING MEAT-EATING …

“The debate about meat, and whether we humans have evolved to eat it, has to be one of the best examples of bullshit seen on the web.

It has largely lost all sense of the complex reality of food choice behaviours. Far too often it tries to rewrite our evolutionary history by invoking pseudoscience.

Some pro-vegetarian or vegan-promoting websites mistakenly claim that humans shouldn’t eat meat because we evolved to be herbivores.

The substance of their arguments is often traceable back to the influential but pseudoscientific views of vegan physician Milton R. Mills.

Some vegan sites even claim support from anthropology for their anti-meat agenda.

We also find bogus arguments like these promoted in the mainstream media where some columnists push an anti-intellectual agenda by misrepresenting the views of scientists themselves such as fellow anthropologist Richard Leakey.”
the conversation.com

And, finally ….

“The Taste for Specialty Foods Is in Our Genes (Univ of Edinburgh)
https://neurosciencenews.com/genetics-food-choice-21260/

"The reasons why people love certain foods and turn their noses up at others, has to do with more than their cultures or even their taste buds… their genes play a significant role too, a new study reveals.

Researchers have identified hundreds of genetic variants—differences in peoples’ genetic make-up—linked with their liking for specific foods, including ones associated with a love of aniseed, avocados, chilies, steak, oily fish and many more.”

​

Which takes us back to the start of this response. Our genes determine a lot of things. Almost everything, in fact. And this would include which foods we prefer, and which foods we, as singular genetic structures, thrive on or don’t.

I prefer to eat a meat-sparing diet, which means that I eat less meat than I do dairy and plants. I don’t expect everyone to endorse, support, defend, or emulate my choice, any more than I would expect them to follow my taste in clothing, books, spirituality, music, movies, or art.

 

[Mary]

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