Changing to a plant based diet to avoid health problems associated with meat and dairy

Cross contamination is a real big thing when you are talking food allergies.... not so sure about cross contamination when we're talking vegan

 

Cross contamination is a real big thing when you are talking food allergies.... not so sure about cross contamination when we're talking vegan

 

Interesting HFCS, is chemically identical to normal sugar.

 

The funniest ruse in American health food labelling is "evaporated cane juice".

Still, I'm laughing now, but I won't be laughing after we leave the EU and we end up with the same lack of standards in food and food labelling as the US.

 

From Here

Types of sugar

 

Ammonia bleached chicken anyone ?

 

It's commendable that you do this out if choice to support your partner.

My wife went back to being pescatarian.
I can't say i fully follow along, but i have cut down on meat a lot, barely have red meat, and I eat more fish and veg (especially green leafy veg like spinach/kale).
I felt a lot better in many ways, i think mostly from the higher fish and veg intake.

best of luck on that diet, it sounds like a step forward.

 

I read today that apparently this approach is called flexitarianism,
seems to be quite the popular thing at the moment.
I imagine homo sapiens evolved eating such a diet, not successfully hunting every day and eating foraged plant based food as a staple diet.
Being health driven rather than dogmatically so means I'm not going to pass up really good quality or wild meat or fish if it's available and I feel like it.
Mostly at the moment I don't miss meat at all although I've had fish a couple of times in the last fortnight.

 

I have heard that term floating about
most weeks I still eat chicken/turkey or pork once a week, I look forward to the fish more nowadays than red meat.

I also heard the term "ethical carnivore" which was used to describe only eating meat that wasn't farmed in a unethical way.

one thing I've always been curious about with vegans, is eggs:
chicken eggs are just produced (unfertilized), so if they are not harming the chicken, then does free range egg count as vegan?

 

Any animal product is non vegan strictly speaking.
From a non dogmatic flexitarian standpoint,, manythe objectionable aspects of meat farming/production also apply to eggs -
Intensive housing, use of hormones and anti biotics etc.

 

You're still exploiting the chickens by farming them, no matter how well you keep them.

Honey is the big split between vegans.

 

We used to have chickens. If anything they were exploiting us.

 

I've never known if chickens in the wild, so i can't see how you could get the eggs without the farming of chickens, but i appreciate the vegan standpoint in this

I always wondered if chickens still exist in the wild, and a quick search showed some variation do in jungles of South East Asia.
A bit off topic, i digress. Back OT.

I stick with organic,or free range eggs, I've noticed more is becoming available,and certainly vegan choices nowadays are much more accessible.

 

I kept chickens in the past, used to love my chooks !
Characters every one, in the end I felt I didn't have quite enough space - also they kept rooting up my seedlings !

 

Had my first meat in the last fortnight or so, a mackerel I handlined off a kayak .
Tasted amazing, had it grilled with a green salad and some brown bread and butter.
Made me appreciate it even more, especially as it took about two hours paddling to finally hit a fish !

 

Both low- and high-carb diets can raise risk of early death, study finds

Talking about diets in general, and plant based protein intake, you might find this article useful.

 

Cheers for that Dead Pool

I'm not making any particular effort to replace carbs with protein and weight loss isn't a reason for the approach i'm taking.
The pooled research leading to that article is further evidence that getting protein from pulses, peas and veg is better for a healthier, longer life than a diet heavy on red meat, chicken and dairy.

"Our data suggests that animal-based low-carbohydrate diets, which are prevalent in North America and Europe, might be associated with shorter overall life span and should be discouraged. Instead, if one chooses to follow a low-carbohydrate diet, then exchanging carbohydrates for more plant-based fats and proteins might actually promote healthy ageing in the long term".

Studies also showed that people who ate low carb western diets such as Atkins etc. heavy on meat and dairy, often ate significantly less vegetables, fruit, pulses nuts and grains etc.

"The authors said they could not prove cause and effect, because of the nature of the studies. However, they said people who embraced western-type diets that heavily restricted carbohydrates often ate fewer vegetables, fruit, and grains and more animal proteins and fats. Some of those animal products have been implicated in stimulating inflammatory pathways, biological ageing and oxidative stress, and could be a contributing factor to the increased risk of mortality."

The crux seems to be that both low and high carb diets can be harmful but more important is the type of fat, protein and carbohydrate, plant based being more beneficial.
Low carb diets as a means to weight loss seem to have little long term effectiveness or sound medical reasoning, the article also says they are being advocated by GP's to combat diabetes so this research may help to provide some balance in this area.
Eating a more balanced healthy diet with fresh fruit and veg, cutting out processed food, reducing meat consumption and getting plenty of exercise
seems much more sensible but then people generally want an easy fix and not to have to change habits of a lifetime (also fighting against an entrenched
meat and dairy industry/lobby).

 

Thre is some interesting research on ketogenic diets in some forms of diabetes, however in general humans are omnivores, and so an omnivoric diet would be easiest to fulfill the bodies basic requirements.

In general eating less meat is good. Eating no meat however brings up a whole host of new problems.

 

Latest study published in the BMJ regarding plant based diet and type 2 Diabetes
Vegan diet appears to aid management of type 2 diabetes
https://drc.bmj.com/content/bmjdrc/6/1/e000534.full.pdf




Another couple of recent studies looking at broader based issues relevant to some of whats been discussed in this thread
Balanced plant-based diets improve our health and the health of the planet — Nuffield Department of Population Health
Brexit diet could lead to 5,600 deaths a year as fresh fruit and veg prices shoot up

In the meantime my wife's strict plant based diet has continued to drastically improve her Rheumatoid Arthritis where all else has failed.

 

Another recent study giving weight to benefits of plant based diet in terms of reducing risk of cancer/heart disease and boosting anti - inflammatory response. Skip to bottom (68) for summary.

https://academic.oup.com/jn/advance...5c18e47-598e-420e-9853-d74da51189dd#130765541