lmmy

???

How can they benefit from something that isn't active?

GGreen: yeah, I know, I guess raw foodists will listen to any "raw food guru", even if they don't actually back up their information with anything that's scientifically proven. Like I read an article by a raw food guru saying that "proton-rich fruits will rob your body of needed electrons". I'm convinced now that most raw foodists have never seen the inside of a Chemistry textbook, or listen to anyone who doesn't say something logically impossible like "we biologically benefit from things that aren't active in our bodies."

I was nasty because you just said "you're wrong" and didn't bother to argue. I think it shows a lot about your lifestyle if you won't even debate it with scientifically-proven -- not anecdotal -- facts.

I have to step in here -- enzymes are not important. At all. Even if you don't destroy them with cooking, your stomach acid destroys them before they can do much of anything to the food you've eaten.

And, as far as I know, minerals cannot be destroyed by cooking -- or there would be no minerals in the Earth, as it spent ~one billion years as molten rock.

The only vitamin I have heard that is destroyed by cooking is vitamin C.

I don't mean to insult anyone on this forum, but a lot of raw foodists are going on, if not outright bad, then remarkably exaggerated information. That said, I have nothing against raw foodism, just bad information, and I wish you the best in your endeavors.

Kale is one of those leafy green vegetables we've all heard so much about! It's delicious (if a bit bitter when not cooked -- or at least to me it is), and goes well with just about anything you can throw at it. You can put it in shakes and smoothies, and trick kids into getting their veggies by calling it a Hulk shake -- it's true!

Kale is also a vegetable which has exceedingly good levels of calcium, at 276 mg per cup (or maybe it was per 1/2 cup? Oh well), and because it doesn't have any oxalic acid (the limiting iron that spinach has), you can absorb the most of both its iron AND calcium levels.

Yummy!

spiel>

Here's one of my recent menus:

Luna bar

1.25 cup kidney beans

2 cups wheat bulghur

Italian (romain lettuce/radicchio) salad with Goddess dressing

5 apples

Green beans + elephant garlic sauteed with shirataki noodles and 1.75 cup fresh spinach

More spinach

Pear

Banana

This came to a little over than 1,600 calories, and it was spread widely throughout the day -- I don't like to eat all at once.

Oh, and it's "L"mmy, not Immy. XD

Okay, I was just worried, because I hear that sort of thing all the time from my friends, and it really weirds me out, because I've seen those "thinspiration" pictures and was at one point really supportive of that disease, so I always get kind of concerned when I hear something like that.. just in case it might be serious, you know? With stuff like this, there's not a lot of room for error.

If I may say so, though, I think you're absolutely gorgeous (if that's your picture as your avatar, anyways) and by no means need to lose weight. Coming from a bona-fide lesbian, that's a compliment.

I still stand by my statement that weight loss is about not eating enough, because I mean that in a purely technical way, not a health way. The reason you lose weight is because there's a calorie deficit; there's no way to get around that whatsoever. So technically you're not eating enough to support your body's weight. I'm not saying that's good or bad, because it depends on the circumstances (rapid weight loss, for example, would be very bad if one had been poisoned with arsenic), but the whole "calories in < calories out = weight loss" thing is true, albeit highly convoluted due to individual body chemistry.

From another forum I go to:

"Skinny Bitch seems to be designed to trick omni women into veganism by appealing to their fat vain asses. It isn't really for vegans, althogh it is by vegans. It actually reads like a really long Rant post on this forum. Some good info peppered with lots of F-bombs and also some bad information. Maybe it was just me, but it doesn't even read like it was written by two skinny bitches! It kinda seems like it was written by vegan dudes pretending to be skinny bitches. Weird. Also, they tell you to get rid of all the omni food, but then they recommend some vegan junk food and pre-packaged food. They also recommend fasting, which unless done under ideal and strict guidelines, can be very dangerous. Their goal is really to make the reader vegan, not necessarily a healthy vegan."

"... -They don't talk about how to figure out your caloric needs, or how much you should eat in order to be healthy. They also talk about how great fasts are (which I don't agree with), and advocate only eating fruit for breakfast and then not eating lunch until you're ravenous. On the back of the book, it says that both worked for Ford Models, and a lot of their "how to deal with food" advice seems straight out of a "how to develop an eating disorder" manual. ..."

"I agree with OMM and [name ommitted to protect privacy]--I bought the book, read it, and returned it. The language didn't bother me; I'm a huge fan of the f-bomb in all its glorious permutations. The attitude bothered me. I'm rather anti-diet-industry, and their ranting seemed to skirt a dangerous edge between pro-vegan and pro-eating-disorder. I mean, an apple for breakfast? Are you kidding me? I don't really feel like Ford models have a lot of credibility when it comes to giving advice to fat people. But that's my own personal bias against the Great American Cult of the Stick Insect Woman.

Plus, it had that same Dr Phil-esque "I'll be mean to you and call you a fat ass to shock you into listening to me" tone that gets really grating after the first few pages. I'm not entirely confident in some of their research, either--some of their sources for their facts were Glamour magazine.

As OMM said, it seemed to play off vanity in order to get people to go vegan, which seems like a crappy reason to do so. It's obvious that the authors are vegan for ethical reasons as well as health, but you notice they didn't name the book "Ethical Bitch.""

There are positive reviews too, but promoting eating-disorder-like behaviour (fasting, not eating until you're ravenous, etc.) has really turned me off of giving it to anyone, because I'll never know if that will be a "trigger" for someone that's recovering -- women (and men) tend to be very, very secretive about their eating disorders, even after they've recovered or started the road to recovery.

Okay, now I'm getting aggressive because I'm being completely misinterpreted (likely because I'm disagreeing/questioning a beloved member of the forum): I was not being aggressive, I just dislike it when people bring in something completely superfluous.. I want to keep my fat intake under 20%; thus, I am not going to eat nuts or seeds. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Apparently not, so I guess I should have added that to my first post.

I get the same way when someone adds in (or seems to) a completely unrelated bit of advice in math. I have a driving need to either eradicate it, or find out what the hell this person is talking about -- and if it's obviously superfluous, I don't bother with it. Yes, I have a stick up my ass about a lot of things.

I come from a vegan diet where fat intake was at or over 30% of total caloric intake, so I really don't think that's hte problem.

P.S. It also seems odd when you're calling me out for being "aggressive" when Raven was getting offended for me not being grateful for a piece of advice that she should have known, from my original post, that I was not going to follow.

...the weight you'll lose is beneficial.

Veganpotter, you are wrong and psychology+physiology in eating disorders supports me. You CAN lose too much weight. "Eating enough" is an oxymoron when it comes to weight loss -- weight loss is about "not eating enough", that's why you lose weight. It's not bad to undergo a mild form of this for an extended period of time -- but it is bad to drop below a weight where you feel and perform your best.

In short, you are espousing the mentality of an eating disorder -- something that you do often on this forum, I notice.

Princessbee, it's really not good to wish that you would never stop losing weight -- we like living vegans, not dead ones.

I, on the other hand, have heard some very bad things about Skinny Bitch -- for example, that the authors espouse various rituals in eating that are scarily (read: exactly) like the ones done by those with eating disorders.

??? Then why didn't you just leave out the part about the nuts and flax?

Yes, I do. I use the SparkPeople calorie calculator, and list all I eat diligently. Days I stay home, I can eat a little more because I have a ready source of food, but I was out only 4 hours today (got out of bed at 10 -- went to bed at 12), and I ate about 1,800 calories, give or take anywhere from 0-100. I was full all day, but I was still eating, and I'm still full, but I don't feel I need to eat anymore.

It's a really big change for me, actually; when I was eating processed foods I was eating for the taste, and "living to eat" as they say, counting calories just to see if I could have another cookie/soy dream bar. But now it's become more of a "eat so I have enough calories" thing, that is, I'm eating because I know I haven't eaten enough to sustain my body.

Surprisingly, apples are more calorie-dense than I thought. Four small apples has 250 calories.. weird. But each of them has 2+ grams of fiber.

Mainly what got me enough calories today was the bread I had; I had two sandwiches today, with green chile hummus, 1/2 red bell pepper each, and 10+ grams broccoli sprouts.

If you don't believe me that's okay, but I mean it when I say that those days I spend at school, I have to eat near-constantly to get my calorie intake up to 1,600, much less 1,800 like I'm supposed to.

P.S. Upon reflection, it may also be that I drink ~a gallon of water every day, whether through teas or straight from the tap.

But I am trying to cut down on fats, not add them.

Ironically (as I noted in my other post), I am having to gorge myself, and I'm still not getting to an acceptable calorie level. Of course, it's almost universally fruits and vegetables that I'm eating. 60 grams of fiber a day = good for you.

I'm still overweight, though. Maybe that will change..

P.S. This is hilarious, though, if not totally true (I know many fat vegans -- admittedly, they eat a lot of processed foods, so that point's given), but the author has the mentality of the diet industry dead-on.

Raven -

???

I don't have any kinds of cravings at all (except for the occasional piece of fruit), and I don't know quite how you got that from my post.

Rest of the day, consume by volume, low-calorie high-nutrient foods, such as greens and vegetables,

I said in my post that I am trying to get more calories -- not less. I can't possibly see how loading up on low-calorie foods would help this goal.

And I already try to take 2 tablespoons ground flax a day.

So your post really does nothing for me, sorry.

Okay, I'll try the beans 'n' lentils (though to be honest, I like peas better -- I have a sweet tooth, as seen!) and see if that works out. I mostly avoided beans because they were a hassle to cook when they're dry, and expensive when canned, and I always put tons of salt into them -- we'll see if the salt thing has changed now that my taste buds have become more sensitive. The problem with lentils is that, other than dhal (which is generally heavy on the oils), I have no idea how to season them. Any ideas?

I'll also look into doing some chilis, too (I don't like stews much), where I can add tons of veggies and never miss a beat. Thanks!

The hitch is that I'm also trying to do this while consuming over 1,600 calories a day (my minimum amount is supposed to be 1,810, but I figure I have a little give and take here), and it's been really hard to get a decent amount of calories without resorting to either fatty things, juices (bad bad bad, no fiber), or gorging myself -- something I hate, and due to past ED issues, makes me feel as though I 'need' to vomit.

So I need a list of low-fat, high-calorie foods. I got some bananas, but they'll take a couple days to ripen, and some dates, but those are too frickin' expensive to fill the (on average) 500-calorie gap between my goal minimum and what I eat before I have to start eating more than I'd like.

To get an idea of what I eat throughout the day, here's a list of what I ate today:

Breakfast:

2 figs

Luna bar (I need some sort of 'fast' food for breakfast -- limited time between when I get up and when I need to get to the bus. Should I up this to two bars?)

Didn't have lunch because I slept through the day -- not a usual thing! I only got 2 hours of sleep last night due to a combination of circumstances, and I was really unstable (breaking down in tears, frustrated to the point of yelling, etc.), so I needed to sleep (the nap I took fixed my instability). However, generally what I eat for lunch is some sort of grain and some sort of fruit.

Snack:

1/5 Endangered Species chocolate bar

1 1/3 cups wheat bulghur

1 Jonathan apple (they're all much smaller than the average apple you see year-round at the store)

7 black mission figs

Dinner:

Broccoli sprout, hummus, and red bell pepper on two slices of whole wheat bread

Green beans + garlic

Snack:

1/2 bottle Naked Juice Green Machine

2 Jonathan apples

2 tbsp ground flaxseed

1 date

.. And yet, eating all this, I managed to just barely meet my self-set minimum of 1,600 calories. I really don't want to resort to juices, some of which (like POM) are animal-tested and therefore NOT VEGAN. Plus they have no fiber, and I've set myself another goal to get over 55 grams of fiber every day. Help, please?

I don't know 'bout y'all, but the ones I would most like to kill are the dairy farmers.. fucking rapists taking away children from their mothers.

Sorry, that was off-topic.

In some cases, violence against property works -- but it almost always only works when it's not the meat&dairy industry. If you burn down a vivisection lab, that's fucking expensive to rebuilt and may not be worth the cost to the company/university. So you may shut down one or two of those; but without footage -- i.e. PR meant to get others on your side -- you accomplished jack shit long-term.

But if you burn down a slaughterhouse, everyone starts shouting about how the 'terrorists' are trying to take away 'good American food', so it's better to stay away from that and just do footage. Erik Marcus, in his book Meat Market, suggests the use of open rescues -- that is, notifying the media and the police directly afterwards, and posting your footage all over the web so it can't be destroyed.

I don't think violence against humans work. It just makes everyone more likely to believe we're terrorists.

Veganpotter, I'm going to ask you this honestly: are you stupid? Do you really think that every fat human out there doesn't feel ashamed of their weight, that they're ugly, that they're worthless because of their size, etc.? Do you seriously have no idea that this is how a neurosis about eating becomes an eating disorder? Do you actually think that telling someone that they aren't fit to be seen in public will make them go out and sign up with a gym so they can display their fatness for all to see?

If you said that to my face, I'd have punched you. And I, sir, have a 70-lb punching bag and work out with it for 30 mins every night.

Now, for the rest of you:

offense74, I've heard of those studies and you know what? They concluded that smoking was good for you because SMOKERS ARE THINNER. Besides, that was probably a much, much smaller study than this one, and anyways.. what I bolded wasn't saying that being fat was good or bad for you (in fact, I believe it's neutral), but saying that we have a warped perception of what is a healthy weight or not.

And actually, check on PCRM, you can count with two hands the number of studies that say that dairy dieting is useless (the only study that says you should was 'proven' with a calcium pill). Please know your facts before you debate with me.

I am obese and my diet is fruits, veggies, grains, and maybe a tablespoon of olive oil now and then for a veggie saute. Apart from popcorn and bread, and last week a bit of seitan, that's the most processed I get. I exercise at least 30 minutes every day; my favourite exercise activities are jogging and weightlifting, and I go to the gym almost every night (Sundays are the only day I don't go, though that's changing) and I go on the elliptical for 20 minutes, and usually I'll dance around in my room for 10+ minutes a day. I eat, on average, 1,900 calories a day.

Why am I still fat? I have no fucking clue. It's probably because all the years of dieting I did when I was younger have permanently changed my body's metabolism and made it harder for me to lose weight.

To answer your last insulting bit of speculation, I don't care if people stay fat or not, as long as they're not eating or wearing animal products. However, I would abso-fucking-lutely love it every company that sold a processed product went out of business immediately and we all started eating fruits and nuts, vegetables, grains, and legumes.

P.S. If diabetes can be fixed by losing weight alone, then why does a similar amount of lost weight on both a vegan diet and the ADA diet still have the vegan diet coming out ahead with 75% of people being able to stop their insulin altogether? Come the fuck on.

Fruits and vegetables taste bad? You're fuckin' crazy.

But often when someone's "small" their frame is small too, so it works out that way. Kind of like you can't always trust the BMI to tell when someone's obese because it doesn't take into account muscle mass -- Shaq would be obese by the standards of the BMI.

Although, if a woman's small in teenagerhood, and I'm talking what we think of as "hot" (see first post), then it's likely because she doesn't eat enough. You'd be amazed how many women who are already thin have eating disorders; this may be why they're thin, or the thinness may just be adding to her fear of getting fat. I was a perfectly average-weight girl at 11, but I thought I was fat and my schoolmates -- who were already dieting and pulling in their abs to look better and stealing makeup to make themselves "prettier" -- didn't help this.

Moreover, if you accept that some people are "underweight" by nature, then you must accept that some people are "overweight" by nature, and thus the BMI is crap because it tries to fit humans into a narrow definition of a "healthy weight".

Otherwise, underweight humans are just as unhealthy as overweight humans (actually, more, because you're more at risk being 5 pounds underweight than 80 pounds overweight).

Offense74, I agree with you.

However, I haven't seen any studies that compare overweight/obese vegans and overweight/obese humans eating the SAD and measure cancer, heart disease, etc. rates. This is my main peeve when I hear people talking about how being overweight is unhealthy for you -- as far as I know, all the studies showing a correlation between fatness and cancer, heart disease, etc. have been done on those humans eating the SAD. Overweight/obese people (both human and nonhuman) tend to eat a LOT more than average-weight people, and if they're eating the SAD that means a lot more of the SAD "foods".

There are also skinny vegans who have had cancer (I know one). At least some cases of cancer are purely biological chance -- that is, nothing you can do will stop it from happening.

Veganpotter, there is at least one study that disagrees with you; I read about it in The Obesity Myth. Basically, the study found that humans with a BMI of 28 had the lowest rates of mortality, while those humans with a BMI of 18 had the highest rates of mortality. As far as the research goes, at least the latter part (low BMI = higher mortality) is true; if you're underweight you're much more likely to die prematurely than if you were overweight.

P.S. Also, I found a source that contradicts the "minimum bodyfat percentage": http://www.weightlossforall.com/fat-percentage-ideal.htm -- this link says that under 21% bodyfat is unhealthy for women.

In my opinion, maple syrup is better than agave nectar -- the agave plant is being forced to the edge of extinction by demand for tequila and agave nectar. The agave plant has a very slow life cycle, you see.

The Eat Right For Your Type diet is so full of shit I can't explain it. However, these links can:

http://www.acu-cell.com/btd.html

http://www.earthsave.org/news/bloodtyp.htm

http://www.vegsource.com/articles/blood_hype.htm

http://skepdic.com/bloodtypediet.html

I found that the taste of the berries wasn't to my liking -- it tasted really metallic to me and had this odd spicy aftertaste. However, some people certainly would like it a lot.

Also, the Heaven's Gate gojiberries are a lot more expensive than are the more generic kind I get -- $5 versus $11. Vitamin Cottage carries the inexpensive ones, last I checked.