About heart disease and animal protein consumption… believe what you believe but I believe in this:
First image it’s a simple chart showing increase in death by heart disease in correlation with increase in animal protein consumption.
Second image, easily understood coronary blockage before and after a whole plant based diet that reversed the blockage.
The China Study is not just a book, it’s made upon cientific studies (several are quoted in it, it’s not only about the study that gives name to the book) by renowned doctors like Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. both Experts in heart disease in USA. Reading their experiments with heart diseases patient’s is inlighting. Prevention by a whole plant based diet is the way.
In a BLT sandwich the item with the biggest carbon footprint is the tomato.
(No such thing as a fish, episode 304)
I don’t eat bacon because the way they have been reared puts me off.
What concerns me is, if we don’t get the science spot on how are we going to save the planet?
Kriss Kresser really? What a joke… That guy took a “beating” from the author of the game changers on the Joe Rogan podcast after he had also debunked the documentary. He just cherry picks what serves his ideas… He is no cientist or experienced doctor has the ones that made and are quoted on the China Study.
Nowadays anyone that writes on a blog makes science?
What is the science behind the reason why some people can eat a ton of animal product and not get heart disease, while some people eat veggies and do get heart disease?
Apart from that, and back to the OP, as the WT nutritionist said on GCN, if your nutrient intake is already spot on, you probably won’t see a performance increase by going meatless.
So the answer to the criticism that a study has cherry picked data, is to say the people criticizing the study are cherry picking? Cherry picking mistakes? Biases?
I have concerns for animal welfare.
I have concerns for the planet and the people living on it.
I have real concerns for pseudo science surrounding veganism because I believe it’s growing an industry which is about manipulating people for profit, rather than focusing on how to really support the planet
One can google the cause of atherosclerosis and learn the cause. It’s not like it’s a scientific mystery. It’s a combination of endothelial inflammation, small LDL particle size, and genetics. The small dense particles get lodged in the artery walls.
So how do you get inflammation? In our modern society, the chief culprit is poor diet - fast food, take-out, processed food, and sugar in everything that comes in a box. You could also have disease or health issues that cause the inflammation.
Second, how do you get small particle LDL? Genetics and diet.
The chief dietary culprit often mentioned is sugar. You can also classify ultra pulverized wheat, rice, whatever flours as practically sugar as it has a very high glycemic index.
Before anyone decided to pick apart my 2 minute answer, just go read for hours on the subject. You could read study after study and do a master thesis on the subject.
Still, I’ve seen no study that meat in and of itself causes heart disease or cancer. I looked through the China Study and the overall gist is that the rates of disease in rural China are less than in urban China. To me, it’s like “no duh”. People in cities live in more pollution, eat fast food and processed food, eat less whole foods, don’t work outside as much, etc., etc. It’s well known that the western urban lifestyle is not great for longevity.
To me it’s all about context. Here is a lunch I made recently out of leftovers. Spinach salad mix, wild rice, avocado, sweet potato, raspberries, and some chicken on top.
I’ve seen nothing that indicates that some meat in the context of plant based, whole food eating, will lead to a negative health outcome.
This…
You can eat healthy and have a major beneficial effect on the planet by simply reducing how much meat and diary you use. I think there’s value to paying attention to sourcing as well, but the amount is foremost.
I went full vegan a couple of months ago and it was good - enjoyed the food, learned to cook a lot of new things, and introduced a lot of veggies into my diet I never used before. But, I found the one thing I can’t live without (of all things…) is sour cream. So, I’ll have it when I want it, and still know that I’ve made a major shift from where I was before.
Yes I’ve listened to the video and I’ve also bought the book.
About that we just have to keep in mind that professional ciclists already have a big percentage of their nutrition caming from plants. That’s said in the video made by GCN. No professional team gives burgers and processed crappy food and beverages like cola every day. And theres a statement in there that if you are a TOP contender and make the change to a complete whole plant based diet as long as that new diet is properly followed as the normal diet containing meat but lean meat and in lower percentages when compared to a standard regular person diet, you can achieve the same results.
So talking about pros probably there’s no gain and also no losses by changing from their current diet to a hole plant based diet. This is clearly stated in the video.
So why stick to one and not to the other? There’s no reason why not going PB.
And what about us regular bike user’s without no nutrition education or nutritionists around us to make a good and nutrient rich diet that pros have but mainly made with PB foods by the way?
That really looks nice. Some quality meat (never processed or meat not properly preserved or from animals exposed to diseases and lots of drugs to treat those diseases) is fine as long as you have plenty of different quality veggies like this you made. But when we cannot control the quality of the meat you get (veggies too can have pesticides I know) or you eat a portion of meat that’s about half or more the size of your plate then you are going in a bad way. And that’s the issue. Most people eat meat as the main ingridient of their meal almost every meals while it should be only a small portion of the meal and never more than a few time a week.
We agree on many things but not everything.
I do take issue with Wilkes saying that meat will give you cancer. He doesn’t say it in the movie but has said it on podcasts.
There’s probably a vegan cauliflower-based “sour cream” available.
Ha ha! There might be, but that’s one thing I’d sooner die than live with - cauliflower.
Even that needs to be further qualified IMHO: animals take lots of e. g. antibiotics, but the problem is not that this makes the meat less healthy, but it increases the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics — which will become a problem for humans as the antibiotics we use will lose their efficacy.
Also, suggesting that animals are not “exposed to diseases” in a way that this endangers the end consumer is quite misleading, the rules in the Western world are quite strict. Usually, diseases become a problem when the cold chain is breached, i. e. after the animals have been slaughtered.
The story is much more subtle, and less exciting: e. g. research suggests that grass-fed beef that has had plenty of exercise is healthier to humans than factory-farmed beef, but not for the reasons that you mention. (Plus, grass-fed beef is also much tastier.)
Lastly, the thing about processed vs. non-processed meats. You are correct that processed meats have been linked to cancer, but the absolute risk is still rather small and other factors like exercise are much, much more significant. So you’d decrease risk of, say, heart disease much more by suggesting to exercise more and regularly. (Of course, the members of this forum are the wrong audience.)
Well, there are plenty of reasons not going plant-based, even if it is just liking certain foods. If we had “tank-grown ribs” like in the universe of The Expanse, I bet a lot more people would be vegan (although not plant-based in a strict sense, I guess).
I would use a different line of argumentation: you can be a top pro-level athlete and be vegan without any loss in performance. And going vegan would be the more ethical choice (e. g. to combat climate change). So that’s a good reason to at the very least significantly reduce your consumption of animal products.
I’ll assume this is why VO2max is a standard predictor of mortality.
Wondering what degree of the pro peloton (or any bike racer for that matter) are, by vegan definitions, “unethical”? In that they race bikes because they are good at it and gives them a big paycheque and fame and lots of girl/boyfriends – end of story. When off-bike, they speed around in various gas guzzling sports cars, wear the shit outta fancy Italian leather shoes, eat net-caught tuna, and have the odd steak sizzling briquette burning backyard BBQ without giving two thoughts about the next seven generations. 
Yes, they are… on paper. In reality, full of holes. For example, our pork processing plants routinely process over 1000 hogs per hour, with (up to) 7 inspectors in place. That is now proposed to be reduced to 3 inspectors, and the new plants coming out process over 1500 hogs per hour. Do the math on that, and ask yourself if any human could actually inspect a hog in that amount of time.
This is just one example. The level of rigor is very similar across other meat production facilities. The “rules” are more hope and paper than they are reality.
I think you and I are generally on the same page here. But, I can’t help but offer that, in my experience, argumentation almost never produces enlightenment or behavior change, no matter how cleverly crafted. Casual conversation and relationship building leads to curiosity about your life, opening opportunity to answer questions asked from genuine interest. It’s a slow process, which probably explains why the human species is compelled to relive each others’ experiences time and again, rather than just constructing our lives on intellectual gatherings from others.
But that’s really just connected to what I wrote above, no? Yes, there are isolated cases where you have contamination in, say, meat processing plants. But the main problem with perishable food items is to maintain the cold chain for otherwise, germs can multiply. Even here, I don’t see a problem on a large scale.
In any case, the discussion is about what constitutes a healthy diet rather than infectious diseases. I was just arguing against the simplistic “meat is full of diseases and medication” argument.
I don’t think this is true, it just takes much longer and as you allude is more of a generational process. Acceptance of gays and gay marriage in my lifetime is an example. Climate change is another (which is connected to the consumption of animal products), people are becoming more and more aware of the consequences, which makes it easier to make conscious sacrifices.
Lastly, the question is what we should aim for: IMHO the most sensible goal is to aim for reduction in the consumption of animal products rather than advocating for veganism. There will be a much larger impact overall if 30 % of the population reduce their intake of animal products compared to 2 % becoming vegan.
Nobody is completely “ethical”, being ethical is not a black-and-white issue. I think it is impossible to completely marry one’s own happiness with not causing any harm to others. I think the Good Place’s Doug Forcett exemplifies what happens if we put all the weight towards one side rather than another. Pro athletes can be good citizens in one respect and bad ones in others, I think this is completely ok and should not be used as a cudgel against people who are trying to better themselves.
Exactly. And the plus side is you get to eat more 