Meat or non meat diet, is one more healthy?

Vegan is about not eating animals, or their derivatives. Once you start to eat varied fruits and vegetables, it isn’t half bad :smile: plus remember that man is very adaptive, so there’s many viable kinds of diet one can follow. Of course, some healthier than others :tongue: but vegan is pretty much the healthiest I know.

Yeah, what he said :tongue: But, Vegan probably isn’t the healthiest diet!! I’ve tried the raw food diet ( Eating nothing that is or contains ingredient’s that have been heated above 115), but it’s just impossible ! I always felt hungry :eh:
Anyways, I’ll let you know how my McDonald’s Croissant tastes in my Lucid Dream!! ( Just as soon as I can manage to have one :tongue: )

that’s ridiculous. why do you think it’s not?

and without a doubt, a meat diet is the unhealthiest diet out there

I’ve got to very much disagree with this. With a vegan diet it is perfectly possible to have a healthy diet, but you have got to be extremely careful that you eat enough of all of the different nutrients that you need. There is one vitamin (one of the B ones I think, possibly B12) that you cannot get naturally from a vegan diet alone. Luckily this is added to lots of foods and drinks (such as ribenna) but without this artificial fortification vegans would be missing out on an essential vitamin. Even with this fortification it is very easy for vegans to miss out on essential nutrients unless they take a lot of care.

In a vegetarian diet you still need to be careful that you’re eating all of the nutrients that you need, but because of the addition of eggs and dairy products you don’t need to be as careful. With a meat diet though, you don’t need to be anywhere near as careful that you’re getting the correct nutrients, as meat provides so many of them. However, you do have to be much more careful that you get the balance right (in regards to fat, carbohydrates and protein), and don’t eat too much meat and too little vegetables.

So all of these diets can be healthy, and all of them can be unhealthy. If you take care in what you eat, then all of them can be equally healthy. But if you don’t take care in what you eat, I would argue that the vegan diet has the greatest potential to cause ill health. This is especially true for children, and I have read about cases of malnutrition in children (from middle class, well-off parents) because of a vegan diet that has not provided the full range of nutrients.

Back on topic, I’ve never eaten food in an LD, but I have drunk beer. It was very realistic and tasty!

not true at all. all essential nutrients/vitamins can be found in a natural source. here is a small list of natural sources of b-vitamins (since you mentioned that specifically):
bananas
potatoes
tempeh
lentils
chili peppers
and many other green veggies here is a page listing the nutritional content of a bunch of veggies/fruits: lenntech.com/fruit-vegetable … ontent.htm

are you forgetting about growth hormones that are injected in many animals?

not to mention that processed foods contain so many chemicals that are known to be harmful. there are a lot of health issues that arise from a meat diet, such as "appendicitis, arthritis, breast cancer, cancer of the colon, cancer of the prostate, constipation, diabetes, gall stones, gout, high blood pressure, indigestion, obesity, piles, strokes and varicose veins

There are natural sources of all B vitamins except one. I’ve looked it up, and it is B 12. The following quote is from the Vegetarian Resource Group https://www.vrg.org/nutrition/b12.htm

Thus, someone eating only a raw foods type diet, with no fortified foods of any kind is at serious risk of a vitamin B12 deficiency, which can be very serious. It is perfectly possible to get B12 in a vegan diet, but you do have to have artifically fortified foods or supplements.

From a health perspective this really doesn’t concern me (as opposed to an animal welfare perspective where it does concern me). It seems very unlikely to me that there’d be a build-up of hormones in meat from this, this isn’t how hormones work. But even if there is growth hormone in the meat, I really think that it will be destroyed by the acids involved in the digestion process, such as stomach acid.

Anyway, a simple way of avoiding this and other chemicals would be to eat organic meat and cook it yourself.

Ok, firstly for some of the things you’ve mentioned I’m fairly certain eating meat has no effect on. For things that it does have an effect on, such as colon cancer and obesity, the problem is eating too much meat and too little of other foods (especially fibre), rather than just eating meat.

The key to healthy eating is balance. With a balanced diet then both a vegan and a meat-eating diet can be healthy, without balance they can both be unhealthy.

Anyway this is getting dangerously off-topic, maybe we should start a new thread?

Guys, let’s all consider our motives for posting here. I’m not accusing either side of doing this, but it strikes me that those who argue with this degree of passion do so because they either take exception at people being prepared to kill animals to eat them, or at being criticised and attacked for doing so.

As the forum guidelines say, please don’t post with the intention to covert people to your system of beliefs, that includes the belief that it is unacceptable etc to eat meat or that a vegan diet is unnatural and therefore wrong in some way etc.

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I’m not sure I can add anything to Dreamers eloquent post. I agree with his description.

I thought (and have heard) that vegan was the worst. Because you stop eating so many other things that contain minerals and other stuff that are needed in your body.

Not really sure though, I’ve tried going vegetarian but I just last a couple of days :razz:, I think its impossible for me. :cry:

lol let me play devils advocate here for a minute and tell y’all about a very interesting lecture i witnessed, only a few days ago, from someone who was either telling the truth, which is incredible, or was the best straight-faced lier i have ever met face to face - which frankly I highly doubt, as i talked at length with her afterwards and could find nothing about her that suggested she was being deliberately false.

so, let me just say this straight out, with a glint in my eye at the ridicule some will no doubt throw at me…

this woman doesnt eat.
or drink.
at all.

yep, you read that right, she is what is known as a Breatharian, and claims to take in all the nutrition her body requires, directly from the Sun and the air around her.
She described at length the process she underwent to reach this point, but it is surprisingly simple. It is just a 21 day diet, the first week of which you eat and drink nothing whatsoever, then in the second week you reintroduce water and pure fruit juices, increasing the water in the third week and also reintroducing raw foods as you feel is needed.
After that you are free to either start eating normally again, stay just on a raw diet, or just drink water but no solids… those with the balls simply give up both solids and liquids indefinitely.

Now. I know full well what most will be thinking right now… probably first most in your minds will be “the body simply cannot survive without nourishment”. And i, and this breatharian that i talked with, would say simply “yes you are completely correct.”

“but hold on, didnt you just say breatharians dont eat or drink at all?”

i did, and they dont eat or drink, but that isnt actually the same thing, if you stop and think about it for a few honest minutes. A Breatharian doesnt receive their nourishment from solid food and liquid water but they do receive it - its just, to quote this woman

“I go straight to the source for my nourishment.”

Basically she is saying, think about what it actually IS that we require to survive. Because it ISNT solid food, and liquid water, these things are just the carrier system we have been taught to utilise. The actual source of the stuff we need, has been taken by the plants from somewhere else… the Sun.

And Im not trying to get all metaphysical/overtly spiritual here - Im speaking quite simply and literally. We all know how plants are designed to convert Sunlight directly, through photosynthesis, but almost no one really thinks about the connotations of that.
When we eat a vegetable or a fruit, and one step removed when we eat an animal/fish, the nourishment we get from those solid things is actually sunlight. All life is powered by sunlight. Plants are doing this directly, herbivores are one step up, carnivores are 2 steps up, and omnivores are just greedy :tongue: but every single member of those levels is after the same thing - sunlight. its just that those creatures higher up the chain are too lazy to do all the hard work of photosynthesis so they just eat the stuff that does!

Now, cutting through all the hysteria surrounding the idea of not eating, what a Breatharian is doing, really, is just getting over the lazyness and cutting out the middle men from the chain. Why not, when you really think about it?
If someone said that you could only get pineapples through them, by paying a premium, but you knew how to go pick them yourself from the patch out back of your house… would you really go through the would-be pineapple merchant?

Really?

yea so… the reaction to this should be fun :tongue:

namaste

oh and btw, yes im actually seriously considering doing this diet myself… at the very least, it can be shown that we dont HAVE to do what we are told we have to do, it doesnt mean I have to not eat ever again… hell i love eating, in a purely aesthetic sense, im really not sure i could leave that kind of sensual experience behind completely - but imagine having the choice!
Hey Mr Monsanto with your GM tomatoes, and your attempts to make Organic agriculture impossible… I dont give a rats ass cos i dont actually have to eat! Nya Na Na! (gives the middle finger to 'em)

LOL now wouldnt it be awesome to see the looks on the Monsanto shareholders faces…

What’s healthy is to cut your carbohydrate consumption to less than 30 grams a day.

To respond to your question from my perspective, because we lack the necessary structures to metabolise sunlight into energy. In addition to the lack of surface area that would actually be exposed to sunlight, if we make the assumption it would be possible in the first place. Also added to that the fact that there is no precedent for what is claimed, plants still need water and nutrients to be able to produce their energy, which is why people use compost and fertilizers.

yes GreenDragon I know exactly what you are saying, but if this woman i spoke with is being honest, there must be alternative ways of metabolising sunlight - yes the plants do it in one particular way but that doesnt preclude the possibility that there are others. (This is like when so many scientists talk about the chances of extraterrestrial life, all the while assuming that such life-forms will be similar to us, and need a similar planet-type… its much more likely that aliens will be exactly that - alien - and will have totally different biologies to us.)

From what she said,and from the little research ive done since, there is alot of meditation done as part of the Breatharian lifestyle - including techniques specifically designed to fill the body with some sort of energy - most might assume this was a “spiritual” sort of energy, but what if the ancients who created the meditation systems simply meant physical Light energy?
As I say, she would have to be exceptionally good at lying with a straight face, for several hours at a time, at least… or… she’s telling the truth, and we - the greater part of Humanity - must readjust our preconceptions… something that is innately difficult for us to do, usually.
(and precedents? some might say there are quite a few - every religion in the world has stories of saints who went for days and weeks without solid food - the Rishis in India still do it today, apparently. But still, theres always got to be a first time, right? Where was the precedent when some bright spark came up with the wheel? it simply didnt exist anywhere in Nature, before we came up with it. Precedents are not always required… luckily…)

at the end of the day, the only way to know is to try it for ourselves… anyone willing to take up the challenge with me? :tongue:

watch this DreamSpace…

just keep it in moderation.

I’m not assuming its impossible, it was you who drew the parallel to plants as an explanation of your position, I was merely showing how it involves a lot more than humans just doing what plants do. There are a great many leaps of faith if you will, within your reasoning.

I don’t see how this is really relevant to your or my point, was this still directed at me?

There are several people in asylums that will tell you, in all seriousness that they are the reincarnation of Jesus, with a straight face, and I suspect even pass a lie detector test to that ends. I’m afraid it doesn’t mean they are right. (The fact that there are many of such people, at the same time, sort of demonstrates that.)

By precedent, I meant some form of life that reliably and in a empirically proven way sustains itself in this way. This topic is something where empiricism lends itself to good use. It’s a great tool and I can’t see a reason not to use it here. I’m not saying to limit what you believe is possible to the outcome dictated by empiricism, rather, to pass what you are perceiving through it and acknowledge that if you believe something not backed by an empirical study, you are in the realm of beliefs, which is an entirely different discussion.

I think this is the result of a misunderstanding between us on the intended meaning of ‘precedent.’

I not sure I agree to be honest, but I’m going to avoid getting into a debate here on what is real, and leave your comment be.

I used to care a lot about this,

I still sort of do ,
strength is better achieved through milks, and be that as it may :
raw milk from a farm that appreciates their animals and treats them right, as pasteurized milk is not very good for us in comparison, and the hormones put into average milks… ick !
and raw goats milk, as the goat is closest to us in body mass, and does not cause such a buildup of mucus ,
or
a health dose of nuts, almonds, raw of course, no need for salted in my experience, either of these things give the body this strength and physical boosting far superior to meat
are quickly digested,

meat stays in the body a very long time
hardly any of it is organic,
and the animals are not loved

in a situation wherein you would be able to kill the animals yourself withotu totally frekaing out , a bit like a native american, respecting them as your borther, then i would not be so upset, but the meat is treated as bad as some humans are treated, like put into a concentration camp, abused, sometimes tortured for fun by bored workers, this is horrible,

it is also simply not a nutritious or healthy thing, yes it keeps you alive, but it doesn’t let you thrive

beans : or raw milk or raw nuts of various kinds, these you can eat a ton of, not gain any weight, not have a heart attack, not clog your arteries, not ingest growth hormones , not risk all sorts of disease that meat makes you susceptible to
and be happy and strong.

now ,

some people in the western world say
oh i love cute puppies, and
then they eat meat,
and you can’t love one animal and then not others, and then kill them in mass numbers ?

the grain and vegetables grown to feed cows, etc, is a waste of land, this can all go to people starving to death right now,

the meat produces tremendous environmental toxicity and pollution near where the farms are , a lot of it destroying and making very sick poor people in not developed nations

it is a waste of energy to raise an animal, feed it, then kill it, obesity usually results,
it is a foolish practice, when, veganism or at least, having milks and such, but being vegetarian, is a good use of our resources and effort, and is much more sustainable

there are hardly any obese vegetarians, and hardly any obese people period, but meat eaters die of heart attacks, cancers, get flus every year ( You don’t get it if you don’t eat meat , ) get all sorts of diseases

it is really a perverted strange fetish that is forced upon poeple that are too ignorant to even questino anything, the sort of people that would be driving people to concentration camps instead of saying no , i won’t support a holocaust, the sort of people that just do whatever they are told is good, without being able to questino why

anyone who questions will at least ocme to understand meat eating is not part of our revolution into higher well being, and is not the highest and best diet,

we synthesize protein from anything we eat, including raw fruits and vegetables, if we need strength as said, there are superior sources of nourishment by far, that do not lead to lethargy

lethargy , such as after a large meal, decreases our ability to enjoy being alive, for one brief moment of pleasure, which you hardly even feel at all, it is called addiction
now,

if you eat raw foods,
then, yo uare going to go away from eating , totally energized and full of energy
if you eat cooked foods you will not ,
cooking vegetables destroys and disitengrates most of their nutritious value, tey fill the stomach and we manage to get by and be alive, but not with JOY and happiness

if you eat a raw food, such as making a smoothie with something green, and fruits (ex spinach ) then that immediately gives you JOY and soaring happiness, which means you don’t need toxic antidepressants

my dad is someone who doesn’t do any stretches or exercises, is in a computer chair all day long
takes bad toxic opiate pain killers because he destroyed his spine from something like 40 years of inactivity + meat eating + eating , generaly, absolutely nothing nutritious, but ,

does not do what heals him ( for ex, yoga, or walking, or tai chi, or stretching, or eeating right ) he goes to the doctor to get loaded up on pils that he hates
and isntead of learning to fix himself he thinks surgeries are the answer, and every surgery he has had has made him worse , and messed him up even more,

and yet he trusts these people with his life, and he is the one destroying his life

on the way back from getting mor toxic pills that he is learning are BS and don’t fix anything at all, he gets FAST FOOD

my family thinks they can solve headaches fro banging their head on a wall on purpose by continuing the head banging against the wall and taking an aspirin, per se, and aspirin is a carcinogen

most of these horrors are avoided by vegetarianism :

for ex , clabbering goats milk ( raw goats milk ) CURES ARTHRITIS
however COMPLAINING ABOUT arthritis, spending most of your money on DRUGS that DO NOT CURE YOU , does NOT cure arthritis

but DAMMIT I AM IGNORANT SO YOU SHUT UP , MY WAY IS WRONG, BUT I DON’T CARE ENOUGH TO FIX IT BY LISTENING TO COMMON SENSE ?

adults are crazy !

god bless smart people under 30 an dthe fwe people in the older generation sthat found that “alternative” is often times SANITY , though not always

NOW WHAT IS EASIER,
25 minutes of yoga each day ,
or horrible agonizing incapacitating surgeries that mess up your body each time you get them ?

i have never met an obese vegetarian,

remember people think the satanic cutting off of a females special private areas is good , and they do it a lot in new zealand, and they think the satanic cutting off of a babies private body parts in america is a good idea,
and people are just damn stupid !

i mean, it only takes the slightest bit of reasoning to see that removing a necessary functinoing normal part of a babies body , be it a girl or a boy , is , a bad idea

i say satanic for a reason , it is the most diabolical of ignorance :
the female circumcision resulting from the desire to control women by not letting them have pleasure
and the male circumcision having the same origin, puritans afraid of men having pleasure, then inventing a conspiracy of hygienee ideas

it is like removing all your teeth and giving you dentures, without anesthesia, in order ot make sure you might not take care of your teeth, so we dont want them to fall out ?
how stupid can you be ?

well, that is why people hate things,

oh well,

if someone knows how to miraculously regrow those particular body areas in men and women they need to go heal the population for free.

*looks suggestively at any friendly space aliens *

I have been vegan for 4 years before. I have never felt better. I believe that it is probablly the most beneficial diet humans can take on. Animals and their bi-products are terrible for our bodies. Plus i believe that with hummanitys current knowledge, there is no longer a need to kill animals or use them for bi-products. People simply eat meat because they enjoy the taste of it, or because they lack the knowledge to eat healthy otherwise. I have also tryed raw veganism, but it was rather difficult for me to give up some of the vegan foods i was so used too, and i lack the knowledge to take on the diet in the right way. Veganism is one of the best, if not THE BEST diet for humans only if done the correct way. Thats just my oppinion. I am currently not vegan, but plan on taking on the lifestyle as soon as i have the money to do it correctly.

SamaelNinetails - I’ve heard of people claiming to be breatharians before. The question that I’d ask her is: why don’t you prove that your diet works by being observed by scientists in controlled conditions? If it does work then it could be used to solve the problem of world hunger and starvation, saving millions of lives a year.

The thing is, our bodies are not specifically after energy from sunlight, they’re simply after energy. Now, since everything that we eat origionally got its energy from sunlight (through photosynthesis) then the two might seem the same thing. But, there are other (very rare) ecosystems on Earth that don’t rely on sunlight. One is based on deep sea vents. Deep sea vents are so deep in the sea that light can’t make it that far down. However, some organisms have evolved to use the vents themselves as sources of energy, metabolising the chemicals released by them. Other organisms have evolved to eat these organisms etc., leaving a small ecosystem that is based on the energy from deep sea vents, not the sun.

However, saying that our bodies are after energy can sometimes give the wrong impression. We’re not after energy in the sense of something like electricity, what we’re after are specific high energy compounds (namely carbohydrates, proteins and fats) that our bodies break down into lower energy compounds. The chemical reactions that break down these compounds make another compound that our body needs: ATP (adenosine tri-phosphate). As carbohydrates, proteins and fats are broken down, the chemical reaction joins a molecule of ADP (adenosine di-phosphate) with a molecule of phosphate to make ATP. ATP is what the body uses whenever it needs to do something that requires energy, such as flexing a muscle or pumping ions from one side of a cell membrane to the other. The ATP is broken down to ADP and a phosphate. This chemical reaction causes the muscle to flex or the ions to be pumped.

Personally I don’t think that there’s any way that our bodies could do this without food. However, if there is some sort of spiritual energy (or even sunlight) that could do it, the only way would be for it to transform molecules of ADP and phosphate into ATP. I can’t see how this could happen.

Saying that though, with our fat stores it’s possible for most people to go a few weeks without food. Water is a different matter though. I’d very much recommend not going without water, most people can only survive three or so days doing that.

NatureDane - There is certainly not a need for humans to eat animals, it is perfectly possible to have a healthy diet without. But a healthy diet is all about balance, and in my opinon any diet (whether meat eating, vegetarian or vegan) can be healthy as long as that proper balance is maintained, and all essential nutrients are eaten. There is nothing inherently bad for you in meat or animal products, and there are a lot of nutrients that are very good for you (especially in oily fish for example). Problems occur when people eat too much of it, and not enough of other types of food.

Prescence of Light - There’s a difference between the ethics of eating animals and health matters to do with eating animals. This discussion is more about the health matters. When it comes to ethical matters I agree that animals are often kept in terrible conditions, and this is why I always try to eat meat from animals which have been kept humanely.

With regards to the health aspects, I disagree with a lot you say. Why is raw milk better for you then pasteurized milk? Raw milk can contain a lot of bacteria that in some cases (especially for children, older people or people with weakened immune systems) can be dangerous to consume.

This is a good point, but again to do with the ethics rather than health reasons. However, what about areas where they can’t grow any crops but can graze animals. For example, in the UK there are a lot of high areas (especially in Wales and Scotland) that are too high up and mountainous to grow crops. However, sheep graze on them, which can be used for food. In this particular case, eating meat can increase the amount of food available.

I have met obese vegetarians. And vegetarians also die of heart attacks and cancers. These three things may be more common for people who eat high meat diets, but the key here is the amount of meat they eat. I’m not arguing that the average meat diet is the healthiest, just that if you get the balance right a meat diet (in my opinion) has the least potential for harm. A diet that includes meat (and very importantly fish) but does not include too much of it, doesn’t increases the chances of obesity, heart disease or cancers at all.

I grew up in a house where me, my dad and one of my brothers ate meat, and my mum and other brother were vegetarian. Since my mum did most of the cooking, and we very rarely ate out, we very rarely had meat. I would often go several months without eating meat, and so had an essentially vegetarian diet. I still got the flu. My mum, who is a pure vegetarian, still gets the flu. There really isn’t any link between meat eating and the flu.

Yes and no. Our bodies can and do synthesize certain amino acids (the constituents of proteins). However, there are some amino acids that are essential that we can’t synthesize, they must be eaten. However, all of these can be found in vegetables. It’s vitamin B12 which can’t, and which must either be obtained through an animal product or through an artificially fortified food.