Eating Meat

[VintageVibe]

He is beyond hopeless. My advice: Don't engage with him.
All of your statements you have made are correct, so I'd just walk away and leave him with it. Yes, meat consumption is positively correlated with numerous health risks, such as colon cancer, etc. And yes it is widely understood that meat consumption should be limited to at most 3 servings per week, even though the average North American diet is significantly higher than that. And yes, meat consumption has significant other impacts as well, such as being a major contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

But Big Ev clearly sees this as a threat to his identity, so like in most threads, he decides to go on the offensive and be a dick. Still can't believe he took your quote from somewhere else and made a new thread on it basically to try and "shame" you, even though all he is doing is looking like an ignorant idiot.

Best to leave it, Nikerato! Take the high road.

Every time I see someone engage...



But at the same time...

[ericdaoust]

Looking through the animal kingdom, meat eating animals have teeth which are very different from humans. Look at cats, dogs, alligators etc. They all have pointed teeth desinged for tearing meat, and skulls capable of great jaw strength. Human teeth much more resemble the teeth of a cow or horse, which are useful for grinding vegetation.

On the flip side, dogs/cats/etc never figured out how to use utensils so their teeth are necessary.

[Pengwin7]

Despite the way this thread started, I actually think it's a very interesting topic.

I like meat.
But as a father of two, I've found that the time I have for exercise dwindles as I try to be a good parent/husband.
I still get out to play men's league hockey once a week... and I take my daughters for a 1K walk probably 3 times/week... but that's it.
I probably been adding 1-2 lb of weight per year and my waist size has slowly increased from a 30 (age 25) to a 32/33 (now: age 38).

We cut back on the meat/milk this year.
Every dinner meal, for me, was not "good" unless there was one key meat-based anchor.
Every breakfast was cereal.
Those were all-good when I was young, single, even newlywed... not flying so well when the free-time disappeared.

re: General Health
I'll tell you the one issue that I find hasn't been properly bridged from the eat-what-I-want-crowd to the eat-healthy-crowd:
Transition Foods towards Healthy Eating.

There are all kinds of people that know the best things to eat.
The issue is... nobody has come up with a good way to transition people there.

You can't just say to somebody: eat vegetables & nuts & get exercise.
Yes - that's the END GOAL, sure, it'll be great for you... but that's no easy task GETTING THERE.

It irks me so bad (maybe I need to be in the "irk" you thread).

My father-in-law is actually now a sort of hot-shot author of healthy eating.
Such a damn preacher. (Self-centered guy, that's how he finds so much time to write and why he writes... to get the accolades).

Anyways - he's all about pushing his "healthy lifestyle" onto his family (& extended family).
Same ol' stuff: Here's how to eat healthy.
OK, super - get me there?

I've always though there should be a website (maybe there is) that made transitioning easy.
For example, you click a food that you eat, say Hot Dogs.
Mmmm... Hot Dogs. (I used to eat these as a teenager every day every summer)

Then it gives you this 3-4 step path, specifically for Hot Dog transitioning.

Maybe you go to a Turkey Dog loaded with sauce (to help mask the meat transition flavour) on a white bun.
Then maybe you go to that same Dog in a healthier bun.
Then maybe you get rid of the sauces.
Then maybe you arrive finally at a veggie dog in the healthy bun.
Then maybe you ditch the bun.

But I never see that... I just read "Eat Your Veggies" [sigh].

I've sort of conveyed this to my wife and she gets it, enough to help me.
When I got to Moe's and get a taco/burrito, I now get Tofu... close enough to my chicken.
When we have pasta, she switched the meat sauce to ground turkey... that's a tough one to stomach, but I've made the transition.
And I can now put Almond Milk into my cereal in place of what was 2%, then 1% milk.
I still can't drink a straight glass of Almond Milk though - for now, that's where I've drawn the line - shit's nasty on it's own.

Well... anyways... that's my input.

Maybe one of you health nuts has come across that website that has the "slow transition" for every food we eat.
I have seen some "If you eat this... try this" articles over the past few years.

And I don't think the government can push stuff on us... but it sure would be nice if there was one general popular site that gave us 3-4 options for every true "bad" food, so we could figure out how to get there.

(too, much, typing... need coffee... mmmmm...)

[hockeymanG23]

Same reason I'm naming mine Marlborough

9 out of 10 doctors USED to recommend them, must be healthy!

Come to think of it, its fairly common to see smokers who live to 85-90 years of age so theres no way smoking could be bad for anyone. Now where is that sarcasm font.....

[2014olympicgold]

@P7. To even further show how messed up healthy eating is now. Almond milk has some large negatives that should be noted.

If you have chronic migraines, they may worsen when you have almond milk. Almonds are high in Tyrosine, and that effects the levels of Thyroid hormones. If you have a thyroid condition, avoid almond milk.

Nut allergy obviously.

Massed produced Almond milk has fillers like soy in it. Soy contains equol and genistein, they affect production of the thyroid hormone. They could also have thickeners too. Such as carrageenan (comes from red algae). They have side effects that cause excessive gas, bloating, the runs, and fatigue. There’s also not a lot of evidence to say if carrageenan is even good for you yet; it’s just a new product.

Some have sweeteners in it, such as corn syrup. Thus you raise your intact of sugar.

As per weeding yourself into a healthy lifestyle. There’s some tricks now used by people. More or less google “how to trick your kids into eating healthy”. Cauliflower used as a filler in mashed potatoes is great, addition of blended veggies in sauces, turkey meat instead of red meat (like you said), gluten free pasta instead (get the right brand and it’s great. You don’t feel bloated after), Kale chips instead of normal chips, and literally remove the unhealthy things.

Easy tricks. Use a smaller plate, shop on the outer ring of a grocery store more often (healthy stuff is on the perimeter), put grapes, strawberries and such in a bowl outside of the fridge (ease of access makes you munch on it more), healthy food placed in clear bags or wrapping and unhealthy in tinfoil (out of sight out of mind idea), and drink out of tall slender glass over small fat ones. That one is interesting. You’ll tend to savour/sip your drink (either alcoholic, pop or whatever unhealthy) in a taller glass rather than a short stubby one. Plus tall glasses tend to hold less generally.

[Loch]

My morning comic browsing brought up this one... (just posted today, and somewhat relevant)

Huh... "Just posted, and somewhat relevant" could go on my tombstone.

Aaanyway....

[Zorro]

Meat is good for you but too much is bad.. Ok I'm done on the meat talk!!

[STLblues]

Living in St. Louis we have some absolutely awesome Bar-b-q joints.....Pappy's is my favorite.....

Curious what's some of the best Bar-b-q you guys/gals have ever had?

[Daydream Nation]

Meat is good for you but too much is bad.. Ok I'm done on the meat talk!!

I had a bunch turkey and ham yesterday. Going to have more turkey samwiches today! Maybe put some bacon on them! Yeah buddy!

[metaldude26]

Interesting post, thanks.

I still don't entirely trust scientists because of a special few who throw out theories as facts. I grew up with Pluto as a planet. I'm so confused right now. Plus, why can't they cure cancer? It can't be a conspiracy for an elite few to make boatloads of money (the theory that it's more profitable to treat than to cure).

Why can't they cure cancer? That's a fun rabbit hole. First off, there are some types of cancers that are very curable, at least with early diagnosis. And then there are others that are much too vicious for our current capabilities.

The reality is that cancer is a genetic disorder. When enough of your DNA gets mutated, in the right ways such that all the usual preprogrammed STOP signals on cell growth are shut off you get cancer and it is at that point that these cells almost stop being your own. But because it's a case of mutation, and the odds are that things won't always mutate in the exact same way, everyone's cancer becomes different.

They are becoming reasonably good at excising tumours. But unless you get all of them, down to the cell, well then you haven't cured the cancer. Also, you could eliminate all the cancer cells from someone's body and you wouldn't change the underlying genetics of the other cells in their body. Just because your "healthy" cells haven't had enough mutations to turn into cancer yet, doesn't mean that a number of them aren't already there. You could conceivably be one burnt carrot or one day too long in the sun from creating new cancer.

So to really cure cancer, we are talking about genetic manipulation. Being able to break into the cells of your body and alter the code of these cells so that all of the functions are working properly. But we'll probably see genetic manipulation for other purposes before we get to that level.

*

You aren't necessarily wrong to suggest that it is more profitable to treat cancer than to cure it. You can apply that notion to a lot of things. The whole pharmaceutical industry is built on the foundation that it's drugs don't actually cure issues but rather alleviate symptoms. And as such you get consumers whose problems never go away. And I don't say that to demonize folks working in pharmaceuticals. There are plenty of reasons to get into that sort of research. For one, it's cool to mess around with chemistry and try and create something new. These people really do want to create substances that will help people. The incentives of the industry are simply setup wrong.

Part of the problem is that it's just so hard to be a doctor these days. You get setup with these norms about the pathology of a disease and how to treat it and keeping up with the latest experimental stuff can be difficult. There is also little to no training done with regard to nutrition and how that impacts health. So with just about any disease you have these doctors who are getting huge pressure from pharmaceutical companies to push their latest drug so that is most of what they are hearing about what is new in the industry. They don't know how to look outside the box.

With cancer, you get sent to an oncologist and within oncology there is even further specialization. These guys become subject matter experts in their field and get really good at following the script of what has worked best before. But if you are a unique case your odds of survival may depend on how willing said doctor is to push the boundaries. There are also serious limitations on what new things doctors can experiment with because of how every study has such a rigid process required to prove it's efficacy. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, what with the hypocratic oath. It's why some of our greatest advances in medicine came out of atrocities like the holocaust. When you don't care about the life you are experimenting on, it becomes a lot easier to experiment. This isn't to say that's a good thing. It's just reality.

*

With regard to new studies, cancer research gets a lot of its funding through charities. I do not know nearly enough about this stuff to speak on any authority but I do suspect that a lot of well-known cancer charities are "for profit" in that they have gotten so big that the folks managing them are making CEO money and that they have a huge staff of employees making money off donations. This may be necessary to make the charity work and keep it above board but I just wonder how much money is actually making it's way towards research. Not enough, I suspect.

*

But research is a funny thing, a ton of work has been done on assisting with outcomes within the current chemotherapy paradigm. Folks are figuring out that positive outlook, along with diet can drastically improve outcomes. Also the evidence mounting with regard to marijuana use during cancer treatment and it's effects on pain management and improved appetite are really positive.

Also, it isn't like radical stuff isn't getting worked on. Have you heard about the study where they were using genetically manipulated HIV viruses to target cancer cells? Brilliant stuff. Or how about the stuff where they are using luminescent jellyfish proteins to cause cancer cells to grow so they can identify and study them better.

*

One could go on and on and I'm just a dummy with an undergrad. You really want to understand this stuff, talk to folks working in the industry.

*

One more thought related to your post about margarin. Did you know that last year the US outlawed trans fats? Companies have five years to overhaul their processing to eliminate the use. You know it's sad when Canada is falling behind the US on diet related issues.

[The Comish]

One more thought related to your post about margarine. Did you know that last year the US outlawed trans fats? Companies have five years to overhaul their processing to eliminate the use. You know it's sad when Canada is falling behind the US on diet related issues.

Awesome post md26, thanks! I didn't know the US outlawed trans fats and sadly I find that we allow the US to lead us in many areas (car regulation for one).

I have cut my red meat consumption drastically and it's been quite easy. I still have a steak every now and then, plus I won't stop eating burgers or making my world famous chili, but I'm conscious of the health factors of too much red meat. Salmon and chicken are my thing.

Everything in moderation.

[plug]

Everything in moderation.

Except beer!

[NoWayOut]

Living in St. Louis we have some absolutely awesome Bar-b-q joints.....Pappy's is my favorite.....

Curious what's some of the best Bar-b-q you guys/gals have ever had?

My favorites:

Best BBQ: Louie Mueller's in Taylor, Tx. <--Their beef ribs are some of the best food period, that I've ever eaten.
Runnerup: Freedmen's Bar in Austin, Tx.
Honorable Mention: Miller's Smokehouse in Belton, Tx, Black's in Lockhart, Tx, Micklethwait Craft Meats in Austin, and Zimmerhanzel's in Smithville, Tx.

I haven't tried Franklin's which is supposed to be the best of the best, next trip though they are at the top of the list. There are some food trucks and such that set up in Austin that serve excellent BBQ. Two of the progeny of the Mueller clan have branched off and are running their own joints and reputed to be as good as the family joint in Taylor.

The thing I love most about the Central Texas style of BBQ is the simplicity, just meat, some simple dry rub, and good smoke. No sauce on the meat, it is available as a side if you absolutely must have it, but they let their handiwork with the meat and smoke do all the talking. Sauce hides many sins by the pitmaster, this way, you can't hide. If you don't know what you're doing it's going to show.

[Mr. Guru]

Made some veggie burgers in light of this thread.

Black beans, quinoa, portabello mushroom. It was alright. Nothing special but my gf really loved them. It was my first time making them so I'll adjust the recipe next time.....maybe throw in some artichoke...

[als_revenge]

[QUOTE=Pengwin7;1549549]

When I got to Moe's and get a taco/burrito, I now get Tofu... close enough to my chicken.
When we have pasta, she switched the meat sauce to ground turkey... that's a tough one to stomach, but I've made the transition.
And I can now put Almond Milk into my cereal in place of what was 2%, then 1% milk.
I still can't drink a straight glass of Almond Milk though - for now, that's where I've drawn the line - shit's nasty on it's own.
[QUOTE]

Try throwing Almond Milk in a blender with a cup of frozen blueberries (or mixed fruit). It's awesome. I wouldn't drink that stuff straight, either, lol.