frankFranchesca

Oh please. You've linked to anticarbohydrate, prohigh-protein, prohunting, propaleolithic diet crap wherein it discusses someone eating whale blubber and the usual Weston-Price propaganda and the usual "ancient humans were hunters and rarely if ever ate carbohydrates and grains" and other unproven propaganda and macho fantasy dogma that people love to spew as if it's largely fact instead of largely fantasy http://franswhatever.blogspot.com/2007/02/antivegetarians-and-their-illogic-part_06.html. Antivegetarian/antivegan people are so transparent. I figured that was behind this thread being started, whether unintentionally or intentionally--I'm not sure in this case. But antiveg people usually come into veg places with a complaint about feeling sick as a supposed vegetarian (they usually aren't vegetarians--it's a bunch of fake b.s., a tactic to make people feel like those posters are "one with the vegetarian" crowd so those vegetarians will listen to them, this is eventually supposed to sway people away from being vegetarian and especially vegan--I've been a vegetarian/vegan for many years--I know how this stuff goes), but they soon show their true intent. Seeing antivegetarian stuff posted at vegetarian forums is always ing. And in my opinion that study's conclusion is retarded. So some humans can still perform some exercise with hardly any carbohydrate intake--what the fuck does that prove? Rabbits can digest some animal protein, but rabbits shouldn't be subsisting on a high-protein diet of animal flesh. Most animals can digest both plant and animal matter, just maybe to varying degrees, and in emergency times for survival reasons, they can subsist on specific foods and different proportions of nutrients they normally wouldn't be subsisting on because it would make them ill over the long-term. In my opinion, this is the exact case with high-protein diets and humans; they can survive on them in the short-term, but the LONG-TERM IS VERY PROBLEMATIC HEALTHWISE. I think this has been shown repeatedly in both science and in many totally anecdotal cases, especially with respect to animal-based foods. I do not approve of animal testing at all. But this study http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7442 did find that a low-protein low-fat diet improved fruit-fly longevity by almost 65%. That humans perform sick studies to find out what should be obvious by observing the healthiest and longest lived human individuals and human populations--humans are ridiculously illogical. They overcomplicate life. More research findings http://record.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/8455.html: "The research, published in the December issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, shows that lean people on a long-term, low-protein, low-calorie diet or participating in regular endurance exercise traininghave lower levels of plasma growth factors and certain hormones linked to cancer risk. "However, people on a low-protein, low-calorie diet had considerably lower levels of the plasma growth factor called IGF-1 [insulin-like growth factor 1] than equally lean endurance runners," said the study's first author Luigi Fontana, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and an investigator at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome. "That suggests to us that a diet lower in protein may have a greater protective effect against cancer than endurance exercise, independently of body fat mass.... "Our findings show that in normal-weight people, IGF-1 levels are related to protein intake, independent of body weight and fat mass," Fontana said. "I believe our findings suggest that protein intake may be very important in regulating cancer risk."" From here http://www.creationsmagazine.com/articles/C108/Cousens.html: "Fact and Fear The high versus low-protein controversy is more an issue of fear and confusion than fact. The high-protein approach to nutrition was initially based on nineteenth century German research that asserted people need a minimum of 120 grams of protein per day. This high protein thinking lingers today, even though the requirement is now considered by conventional nutritionists to be 60-90 grams of protein each day. But expert research around the world suggests that the real protein requirement is closer to 25-35 grams, and less if the protein we eat comes from live foods. It is also interesting to note that the average protein concentration in mother’s milk is just 1.4 percent, sufficient to supply the human organism with all the essential amino acids and protein needed during the period of most rapid growth and brain development. Apes, considerably stronger that humans, live on a fruitarian diet that averages between 0.2 and 2.2 percent protein, equivalent to the protein concentration in human breast milk. These facts lead one to question: Just how much protein do we really need?... There Is Enough Protein in Vegan Foods The biggest fear generated by pro-meat eaters and new vegetarians is about not getting enough protein. The real problem is just the opposite: We take in too much protein. According to the Max Planck Institute for Nutritional Research in Germany, there are many vegetable sources of protein that are superior or equal to animal proteins. The Planck Institute found complete vegetarian proteins—those that contain all eight essential amino acids—to be available from almonds, sesame, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds, soybeans, buckwheat, all leafy greens and most fruits. Fruits supply approximately the same percentage of complete protein as mother’s milk. Dr. Airola feels “it is virtually impossible not to get enough protein, provided you have enough to eat of natural, unrefined foods." From here http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/protein.html "Protein Requirements With the traditional Western diet, the average American consumes about double the protein her or his body needs. Additionally, the main sources of protein consumed tend to be animal products, which are also high in fat and saturated fat. Most individuals are surprised to learn that protein needs are actually much less than what they have been consuming. The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein for the average, sedentary adult is only 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.2 To find out your average individual need, simply perform the following calculation: Body weight (in pounds) X 0.36 = recommended protein intake" From http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=50900 "Too Much Protein So think twice when you consider sacrificing the carbohydrates for a protein-dominant diet, Butterfield says. Drastically cutting carbohydrates from your diet may force your body to fight back. She says that's because a diet in which protein makes up more than 30% of your caloric intake causes a buildup of toxic ketones. So-called ketogenic diets can thrust your kidneys into overdrive in order to flush these ketones from your body. As your kidneys rid your body of these toxic ketones, you can lose a significant amount of water, which puts you at risk of dehydration, particularly if you exercise heavily. That water loss often shows up on the scale as weight loss. But along with losing water, you lose muscle mass and bone calcium. The dehydration also strains your kidneys and puts stress on your heart. And dehydration from a ketogenic diet can make you feel weak and dizzy, give you bad breath, or lead to other problems. How Much Protein Do I Need? The amount of protein you require depends on your weight and your daily caloric intake. Most Americans consume more than enough protein in their daily diets. A few specific groups of people are at risk for being protein-deficient, including elderly women and people with illnesses or eating disorders. A protein deficiency is defined as eating 50% to 75% of the recommended amount of daily protein, Butterfield explains. Ideally, you should consume 0.36 grams of protein for every pound of body weight, according to recommended daily allowances (RDA) set by the Food and Nutrition Board. So if you weigh 170 pounds, you need about 61 grams of protein each day." "BerryBlis" stated: "I do not think YOU are taking in nearly enough protein, regardless of what you think, 20 grams as you stated is far FAR too low unless you are eating millions of calories" --How do you know? Those protein counters I quoted above notwithstanding, you most likely really have no idea what his actual protein requirement is--or anyone's (assuming it's always the same--it may actually change for each individual under different circumstances). Equations aren't real individuals; they're equations. I think he may be eating too little because he's tall and seems to have a larger frame; he probably needs between 50-70 grams per day over the long term, but he didn't say he would be eating lower protein amounts for forever. He also didn't say he was eating exactly 20 grams per day. He said, "I'm trying to lose muscle on under 30g a day and its not working(I'm 200lbs and 6'1").,.." Also, he (or anyone else) may have made mistakes in counting what he's actually consuming. And also again, I'm not sure the nutritional values attributed to all the various foods are necessarily correct, especially with respect to individual samples of each type of food (other animals and plants come down with deficiencies, and food that's been sitting around for a while like in supermarkets often loses nutrients). Whatever the case, if he isn't losing muscle mass, that may suggest he isn't deficient in raw materials for making muscle. To your "millions of calories," if a person is getting enough calories in the form of whole foods, it's pretty impossible to eat too little protein (though the person could still have deficiencies of certain amino acids--s/he's getting too much of one, not enough of the other, though I think this is also rarer than people claim). Intaking "millions of calories" of whole foods would probably be physically impossible. Unless a person were eating huge amounts of very concentrated refined foods, adequate calorie intake should provide adequate protein in most cases. And excessive calorie intake of whole foods would probably provide excessive protein. "I guess if you do long distance sports it's handy but in the long term aspect of things, having low muscle mass is a call for problems." --You're starting to strawman here. How do you know he would have low muscle mass? He may have too-high a percentage of muscle now and THAT'S why's trying to decrease the amount. You assumed he's of average-build musclewise when he may be very muscular. IMO, too much muscle can possibly be just as bad as too little. I know this is a bodybuilding forum, but extra muscle is still extra tissue that the heart must pump blood to and through. I personally don't think people should get too-too big, either with fat or muscle or both. "I usually get upwards of 160 grams per day and I'm 110 pounds...." --Um, sorry, but a person at 110 pounds, at least according to those counters above, should probably be intaking around what I should be: about 40 grams of protein per day. According to those equations and assuming BerryBlis is correct about her/his intake, BB is eating 4 times that amount, which is outrageously high. 12 eggs a day, as egg whites or not--I feel ridiculous addressing something so terrible; it's hard for me to believe that in 2007, some people are STILL eating like that. If anyone is under a doctor's care and that doctor is suggesting that person should eat 12 eggs a day in whatever form, that person should really consider getting several second medical opinions, not that people should take the word of doctors as gospel because many of them do and know nothing about preventive health diet-wise. Likewise, people also shouldn't take nutritional advice from message boards as gospel. Each person must figure out her own path, what's best for her own body. However, ignoring fundamentals about what foods are the most dangerous is asking for trouble.

I wish my mouth were a vacuum and I could suck in all those foods at once--but then I'd probably get a huge stomachache! Blueberries, pomegranates and mangoes are my favorite fruits and are like food of the gods, if there were gods (hehe, I'm an atheist). I once posted on my blog that I should create a blueberry, pomegranate and mango cult where everyone worships those fruits. Right now I'm content eating some raw pie for breakfast/lunch from Raw Food Made Easy For 1 Or 2 People; the pie is just blended fresh and dried mango in a coconut, walnut and date crust and it's awesome, like all the recipes in that book. I'm so happy I came across it because I find many raw cookbook recipes waaaay too complicated. None of the recipes in RFME call for dehydration, and all are vegan, except a few where she makes an optional cheese suggestion at the end for people who are vegetarian, which is annoying reading, but is the only really bad thing about the book. Oh--it's not a hundred percent raw because of a few condiments and other suggestions and one heated soup recipe, it's like 99%, which is okay with me (I eat a lot of raw but not completely) but maybe wouldn't be okay for others. The book includes a helpful weekly shopping-list guide. The dessert recipes are so awesome, the ones heavier on nuts are so rich that you wanna eat more than you really should. I took pics of the banana pudding and the spring rolls, maybe I'll post them on my site. Good luck going fruitarian!

Hi back at you! Hehe...I'm embarrassed to post there; I don't often draw too much attention to myself, except at my own places. Plus I actually first came in here months ago. But let me think about what I could write, and maybe I'll get the courage to post it....

For years people spewed the popular mantra that more protein = more muscle growth. But I kept personally noticing that increased plant-food consumption, especially leafy greens, actually did that when higher protein foods did not. When I consider the other species, the ones with the highest green vegetable/leafy green intake often have the most developed muscle tone. You can't necessarily compare accurately across species (or even within species...) so probably shouldn't do that too much, but I've often wondered what's going on and think the situation is a lot more complex than many people seemingly believe. I started thinking (and still do) that minerals are very important for muscle growth and carbohydrates too. Gorilla, who posts here, recently said that he thought eating a lot of spinach (and whole-grain pasta, I think?) had a steroidal effect. Could this be going on too? Plants do contain sterols, which are a subset of steroids. Seaweeds contain growth hormones, so do land plants. Could some of these compounds ultimately affect animal tissue growth once they're changed through digestion, especially muscle tissue? Synthetic steroids supposedly used to be made from plants. People now say the Popeye thing's a myth, but I've been thinking that it might turn out to be true.... Maybe you could focus on eating less growth-stimulating plant foods for a short while, maybe that might help? Now what those foods are--that's the big question as I don't think what's going on is clear. It's also possible that certain plant PARTS may be less stimulating, like the parts that contain less growth hormones, the parts that grow slower in other words. But maybe vegetables/fruits higher in water and fiber might be better? May I ask why you're trying to "bulk-in"? Did you get too big and lose mobility or flexibility?

"Also, you should not expect a lot of support on a vegan forum for eating eggs." --Yes and like, duh. I think it should be clear to readers that this isn't a place for animal-product and meat consumption propaganda and defense. I hadn't been here in a while, but several of the recent threads (often by meateaters, what the fuck?!?) have been frustrating reading. Has the traffic gone up here lately? When that happens, that may attract the "other side".... How sad that it's 2007 and too much of society is STILL on the humans-should-eat-significant-amounts-of-protein bandwagon. I think vegan potter and others are correct. "Even the rawest of vegans eating tons of sprouts for protein will suffer the consequences of a high protein diet...maybe less so than a high egg/milk protein diet but he/she will still suffer."--I agree with this. I have a background in science; I keep up on recent findings and think more scientific evidence keeps coming out supporting an increased consumption of vegetables (many of which may actually contain significant amounts of protein) and fruits and a decreased consumption of higher-protein foods, especially animal-based foods, for optimum health. But I think higher-protein vegan foods should maybe be decreased too, not counting nuts and seeds, as these should probably be consumed pretty regularly, though not in high quantity each time. I've personally found protein foods more and more problematic over time, vegan protein foods included, and think protein is very overrated, even with respect to muscle growth (IMO, minerals and carbohydrates are more important). I've been eating more and more raw lately, still eat some cooked meals and some grains (if I don't, my stomach can feel painfully acid) and beans (no soy anything), yet less than I was, and I hadn't been eating that much to begin with. While I love the taste of them, I also think beans are a concentrated source of protein; small amounts a couple of times a week can be okay (I had a little cooked legumes twice this past week, bean sprouts once, and have recently discovered chickpea miso, which I find delicious and doesn't disagree with me in small quantities). Anymore than that just doesn't feel good, either to me or my husband. You don't notice how bad eating higher-protein foods can feel until you start eating them less--and that includes high-protein vegan foods. While I've gotten a bit slimmer eating more raw and less protein, I've had no loss of muscle tone. Actually, I think my muscles have gotten harder.

Gorilla chest alert!!! That's meant as a big compliment. In my opinion and experience, vegan diets make denser squarer muscles, particularly on torsos. I think it may be the many minerals in plant foods. Vegetables (like leafy greens) can be quite high in protein too. My husband Steve's chest is hard even when he hasn't been working out much. I'm not muscular but I gained more muscle as a vegetarian than I ever had as a meateater, and keeping whatever muscle tone I do have is easier now. We've both been vegan/near-vegan (because we used to eat honey occasionally in the past) for about 15 years. We've always eaten a lot of vegetables; Steve in particular loves to have a big salad every day. Keep up the good work (everyone else too!) and happy vegan eating, Fran

I think they're excellent, especially your black and white work, and the skeletal pope is great. Your style's very suited to horror illustration; it reminds me a bit of Michael Whelan's work on H. P. Lovecraft books.

Okay--I see what you mean now! I was looking at this from my own perspective rather than from the perspective of a bodybuilder (which I've always wanted to be but could never be, though I work at staying fit). You're right about knowing something will be a "contest" when people enter--I think that's probably the case in general with this stuff. I just always feel bad picking among individuals because that's my personality: I'm not crazy about seeming hierarchies. But I hear what you're saying/implying about wanting to reward people so they stay motivated to keep breaking seeming limits. I'll look over the pics and info later when I can devote more time to them: because everyone seems to have done so equally well, maybe any differences between their change amounts are really subtle. Not that I'm an expert on this because I'm not. I just got the email sent out to everyone and wanted to explain how I felt before putting in my two cents, for what my two cents are worth, which may be diddly.

...I think everyone has done so well, I really can't pick among them. They all seem to have achieved pretty equal amounts of change with respect to their own selves and stated goals, and then comparing those amounts among them. But I'll look at the pics some more later, maybe I'll notice something different. Contests always make me sad for those who don't "win." Everyone in the world should be a winner because then there would be no losers.

Ditto! I love it--it's one of favorites. For a little book, it packs lots of flavor. Every recipe I've tried from there has been delicious. When I made the white bean and avocado burritos the other night, I took pictures of them--will probably post them on my blog....

W.r.t. almond and other nut butters, I think fresh nuts/seeds are so flavorful that using a more neutral-flavored oil with them probably won't make a difference taste-wise. I recently made fresh tahini with a little canola oil and it was soooo good, I didn't notice the flavor of the canola. When I do stuff with nuts and seeds I usually make a little at a time because blenders aren't too great for pureeing thick mixtures, and I first grind up the seeds till they're in very small bits--a bit of natural oilyness will have started happening on its own. Then I add in the oil, or water if I'm making nut milk, cream, etc. Or I first use a little water with the whole amount of nuts and blend that into a thick slurry, and then I add the rest of the liquid. I just googled "homemade almond butter" and "homemade tahini" and got a bunch of links.

I think it's a strong herb; it can be poisonous. From http://www.holisticonline.com/Herbal-Med/_Herbs/h156.htm "Safety: Nutmeg is a mild hallucinogenic drug, somewhat like marijuana. In addition to hallucinations and elation, however, eating nutmegs produces stomach pain, double vision, delirium, and other symptoms of poisoning. CAUTION. Eating as few as two nutmegs can cause death." I believe that paragraph's taken from The Herb Book because my copy has it written out exactly like that. Or maybe that info comes from some other source usually used for describing nutmeg. Not sure. From answers.com: "Side Effects There are no known side effects from using nutmeg properly. Too much nutmeg, however, can cause serious health problems and even death. Early symptoms of an overdose of nutmeg (one to three nuts) are thirst, nausea, and feelings of urgency. There may also be experiences of altered consciousness; this can range from mild to intensive hallucinations, and results in a stupor that lasts from two to three days. Sometimes shock and seizures occur. Immediate medical attention is necessary when someone has taken too much nutmeg." Wikipedia has more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutmeg_psychosis It seems nutmeg's hallucinogenic effects are evidence of some poisoning having already started, which I think is probably the case with any can-make-people-"high" drug, just maybe how long-lasting and permanently damaging the poisonous effects are varies per drug. Having said all that, I LOVE nutmeg! The flavor's awesome; it's one of my favorite spices. But "spices" is the key word there, so I use nutmeg in small quantities. I've occasionally made desserts with half a teaspoon of ground nutmeg consumed by two people and haven't noticed any hallucinogenic effects or any other effects. Still, I know it's a pretty strong herb so I'm careful not to use too much too often; I usually use about a quarter of a teaspoon ground for two people. Also, I use already-ground nutmeg, which may be weaker than freshly ground, like most of the nutmeg oleoresins are probably destroyed once they've been sitting around, once the seeds have been exposed to air more. Happy and healthy eating! Fran