Any Vegans on the Board?

by PrimateDave 69 Replies latest jw friends

  • PrimateDave
    PrimateDave

    My New Year's Resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the Vegan-Pure Vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.

    It is a change I have considered before on different occasions. I didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet. I've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs. I'm not a big person, so my optimal weight might be closer to 150 lbs. Frankly, I don't care about weight. My main concern is my long term health and how I feel. I want to have more energy, better skin and eyesight, and improved digestion.

    Three of my uncles have died. Two of them were my father's brothers, and the other was not genetically related. In all three cases the lifestyle choices they made killed them in their 60's, too early if you ask me. They were not sudden deaths. In each case they suffered chronic illness as a precursor to their demise. One in particular had a veritable smorgasboard of infirmities: diabetes, hypertension, and prior heart attacks and strokes. He was a man who loved his steak and beer. He had been an elder before his infirmities became too severe. It is interesting how obesity is considered normal in our culture to the extent that it is no longer considered to be a "sin" among the Witnesses.

    When I look at the health of my parent's generation that have lived on the Standard American Diet, I don't like what I see. Even among people my own age it is alarming to see so many depending on pharmaceuticals to correct for lifestyle choices.

    Dave

  • inkling
    inkling

    On what are you basing the idea that a vegan diet has positive long term health effects? We are omnivores by nature, and a varied diet including reasonable amounts of meat and dairy is what we are "optimized" to run on. (by either evolution or god, depending on your version of reality currently installed)

    Agreed, that is a far cry from the diet of the average human "omnivore" today, but there is certainly no
    guarantee that a vegan diet is going to be the ideal diet, or even an improvement, if not very carefully executed, and even then debatable.

    [inkling]

  • Priest73
    Priest73

    JESUS CHRIST! If god didn't intend for us to eat animal, he (or she) wouldn't have made them out of meat.

  • Marjorie
    Marjorie
    If god didn't intend for us to eat animal, he (or she) wouldn't have made them out of meat.

    Well, humans are made out of meat, too.

    Just sayin'....

  • Priest73
    Priest73

    "Soylent Green is people!"

  • PrimateDave
    PrimateDave
    We are omnivores by nature, and a varied diet including reasonable amounts of meat and dairy is what we

    are "optimized" to run on.

    Can you point to a specific scientific study that proves that hypothesis? Or is this simply something that "everybody just knows to be true"?

    Dave

  • hamilcarr
    hamilcarr
    We are omnivores by nature, and a varied diet including reasonable amounts of meat and dairy is what we
    are "optimized" to run on. (by either evolution or god, depending on your version of reality currently installed)

    Our body may easily adapt to changing lifestyles. After humans started keeping cattle a lactose gene mutated allowing adults to digest dairy products.

    Or is this simply something that "everybody just knows to be true"?

    So, unlike popular thinking, we're not at all intended to thrive on a diet of dairy. After all, lactose intolerant is how nature intended us to be.

  • PrimateDave
    PrimateDave

    I would also like to suggest that natural ruminants such as cattle can also live on a diet of animal proteins.

    Cattle Feed is Often a Sum of Animal Parts

    This doesn't mean that cows are natural omnivores.

    The fact that many humans can live to old age on a Standard American Diet isn't necessarily a recommendation of said diet so much as a testament to the adaptability of the human body.

    Dave

  • Quirky1
    Quirky1

    So, being on a vegan diet you cannot have dairy products?

  • PrimateDave
    PrimateDave

    Why are dairy products considered healthy? Are there any impartial scientific studies that support the claim that cow milk or it's derived products are necessary for health? What in fact is the main cause of osteoporosus?

    Dave

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