blabbate

Ah once again Blabbate is the voice of reason on a thread full of psuedo-science!

Interesting discussion and interesting reads you guys

And fallen_horse!

This is frustrating.

 

Has anyone here heard of selective breeding? We have been making 'GMO' foods for a long time, just not as advanced as at the genetic level. We have bred plants for specific properties for hundreds of years, and we are becoming better and better at it. The problem has always been the COMPANIES behind the PATENTS, and the MONEY behind the breeding, not the foods themselves.

OK, I'm glad you brought up selective breeding. This is done frequently for show dogs. Have you ever seen the degradation of the blood lines of show dogs? It is sad really to see what is going on behind the scenes. Take a look at this and tell me if you still think selective breeding is a good idea. And please be careful putting a lot of stock into what you find on Wiki. Anyone...and I mean any idiot (although not always the case) can write or edit the entries there.

Comparing selective breeding across species is pointless without looking at specifics, and you're jumping across kingdoms here. It's an utterly invalid comparison. If you disapprove of selective breeding of plants for food, then I hope you don't eat corn. Or rice. Or wheat. Or strawberries. Or cauliflower or broccoli or onions apples sprouts collards carrots etc etc etc.

As for Wikipedia's reliability, the scientific articles are exceedingly well-curated. Wikipedia overall is as reliable as any other encyclopedia or large-scale reference corpus, with the benefit of being self-healing when an error is discovered.

I should add that breast milk contains 6% protein and babies more than double their size in the first year on breast milk alone. We don't need as much as has been marketed to us. 10% should be more than adequate unless you have some sort of muscle wasting illness or are a burn victim.

Babies also have wildly different metabolism (and biology in general) than adults. It's not a valid comparison.

Some people are going to build muscle better with higher protein. For others, 80/10/10 will be perfectly fine.

This young lady is impressively bright, but it helps that O'Leary is doing a terrible job, too.

That's a bunch of BS-look at the work of Dr Gabriel Cousens and what he's done with diabetics using a raw food diet. He was an MD who became a naturopathic physician when he realized prescribing meds wasn't curing diabetes. Now he regularly gets diabetics off their meds and blood sugar in the normal range through a raw food approach. But then again it could be "due to" the weather in the SW USA where his center is located.... Using a predominately raw diet with a heavy emphasis on juicing comes from Dr. Gerson and his years of work and research with his patients. How about Dr. Esselstyne using a plant based diet to reverse disease in his cardiac patients? Not enough double blind placebo controlled peer reviewed studies there for you there either?

Well now, after mentioning Cousens, I think you might just be kidding around. He claims to be a homeopath and "reiki master," and I'm not aware of him providing any actual evidence that he can get diabetics off insulin outside of the Simply Raw documentary, which is, frankly, a mess (http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/simply-raw-making-overcooked-claims-about-raw-food-diets/). He can make all the claims he wants, but until he provides actual evidence, they're meaningless.

As for Esselstyn, that's correct, not enough studies. In fact, Esselstyn goes beyond simple lack of evidence into the realm of dishonesty, brushing over the fact that in his research he puts his subjects on statins, instead claiming all the effects -- which are dubious anyway -- are due to diet. And yes, his work is uncontrolled. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7500065)

I'm not saying that diet can't have dramatic effects on health. Of course it can. Depending on the person and diet, it can reduce the need for medications, including insulin. It can certainly reduce the risk and severity of heart disease. However, truly drastic changes are rare, and the same diet isn't going to work for everyone. Raw foods aren't a panacea. This is why we do the research and collect actual evidence. Otherwise we'd have a thousand different ineffective treatments for every ailment.

I certainly respect what you're saying but disagree with your comment that it's not "real" information. There are plenty of people out there aside from Danny who not only follow but thrive on a raw vegan diet and there are numerous cases where people have successfully overcome chronic disease due to this way of eating.

"Due to" is your problem there. There's no evidence it was "due to" this way of eating. They have a belief, maybe, but it's based on correlation, not evidence.

Certainly it isn't the only way, but to say it's not real is false as people do it daily. Perhaps it doesn't line up with your personal beliefs yes, but to say it isn't real information is a stretch. Plenty of people consume large amounts of raw food on a daily basis and seem to process and digest it just fine. I know many people don't have the same success - I think due to individual's own unique biochemistry would have a greater affect on how they process foods whether they be cooked or raw. Oh, and registered dietitians? Considering some still recommend the classic "food pyramid" I'll try not to mistake what they all say as "real information" either!

It's "real" information, but it's anecdotal and uncontrolled, so it's not worth much. I think it's pretty well accepted that people can live fine on a raw vegan diet, sure. It's just when other claims come in that things get sketchy. Curing diseases, "detoxifying," etc. Humans, nearly all of us, are incredibly stupid when it comes to correlation and confirmation bias.

Don't worry about the China Study. If you think that 80/10/10 might be right for you, then give it a shot just like any other diet. If it doesn't feel right or work well, then switch to something else. Different diets work for different people.

What you describe sound like some of the known effects a person can witness while falling asleep. You can do a search about it, but if you fall asleep while maintaining some level of consciousness, you're spatial awareness can feel different and you can start feeling vibrations (which makes you believe your bed is shaking/waving), also you can hear all sorts of noises from loud bangs to whispers, etc.. I've experiences these things before. There are even ways to produce them through mental exercises while falling asleep.. look up astral projection. I wouldn't focus too much on the spiritual aspect since I feel a lot of that is interpretations people create.

+1

Our brains are unbelievably good at tricking us into feeling, seeing, and hearing things that aren't there. Heck, people used to think that sleep paralysis was a demon sitting on their chest, which, in a more superstitious time, isn't a terribly insane leap to make.

Is it possible you are lifting too heavy? You could lower weight and focus on form... that would help to prevent injury.

+1

This, for sure.

"Orbs" are just photographic backscatter. They're light reflecting off of particles, usually dust, in the air. You'll see them most often when you have a bright light source close to or closely aligned with the lens.

thanks I'll follow your posts with with more interest from now on. You seem a very highly knowledgeable poster.

Oh, it's mutual!

What, exactly, were you talking about when you made that statement, then?

leukocytosis and enzyme consumption.

Based on food enzyme theory? That enzyme consumption reduces the amount of work the human body must perform to digest food? That's a claim about TEF, and it isn't borne out in the literature.

The leukocytosis claims of raw food theorists are specious as well, largely based on pre-1970s research (like Kouchakoff's) that hasn't held up to scrutiny and further testing.

have you read Howell's book?

no.

cheers I've stopped readig there.

I feel like you stopped "readig" for comprehension quite a few years ago if you take Howell seriously.

it doesn't take a genious to understand that I wasn't talking about TEF (thanks for the lesson but I know what it is) in the first place when I said that statement was false, as there's no mention about TEF in the original post I quoted there's no way to know if the survival expert was referring TEF in his advice.

What, exactly, were you talking about when you made that statement, then? The entirely of the text you quoted is, "as when food is cooked, the body uses a considerable less amount of energy digesting it." That's pretty obviously a claim about the effect of cooking on the energy required for digestion.

have you read Howell's book?

Ha! God, no. I've read enough of his research to know that his "food enzyme" claims are bonkers and baseless. Why on earth would I read one of his books? My time is limited, and the amount of useful, valid information out there is vast. I'm not going to waste my time reading junk science. I don't read books on homeopathy either, and I don't think I'm missing out.

I didn't mention TEF at all.

The thermic effect of food is a measure of the amount of energy above baseline required to digest and store food. You said that it was "blatantly false" that cooked food requires "a considerable less amount of energy" to digest. So even if you didn't mention TEF explicitly, you commented on a claim about TEF.

I'm going to read these links. As for me, I experience a much easier digestion when I eat raw food compared to cooked food specially with veggies. How would you explain that?

I don't see a need to explain it if you're somehow using it to support the argument that cooked food does not require less energy to digest. Ease of digestion and energy used in digestion aren't necessarily in direct proportion. I'm not even sure if they correlate at all.

I also don't particularly care about tiny amounts of anecdotal evidence. Your single data point is meaningless by itself. Your individual biology could be ideal for raw food digestion due to variations in enzymes, intestinal fauna, eating habits, chewing habits, etc. Or, you might just be falling prey to confirmation bias. Or illusory correlation.

Well, look. I can't make you not believe in ghosts. However, bear in mind that we've equipped much of the global population with ubiquitous video and audio recording equipment, yet have generated, as a planet, zero evidence of supernatural activity that withstands scientific scrutiny. So I guess I'm saying not to worry too much about ghosts. Look for mundane explanations first.

I'm curious how these studies measure the foods after being cooked. Ultimately it doesn't matter if a food has more of something available if what is available can't be used appropriately by the body. In other words.. It only matters how our bodies react to what we consume, and the only way to find that out is to try it yourself. This is why I'm eating more raw stuff so that I can get first hand experience and actually feel what my body says about it..

How they measure the caloric content of the food itself or how they measure the thermogenic effect of the food on our bodies? Because they're different methodologies. For the latter, I believe they often use VO2 measurement, which is fairly precise if controlled properly.

For the former, they can use the Atwater method to estimate the energy available to humans or just toss it in a bomb calorimeter to get total energy.

First off cup cake, my advise wasn't to you, secondly that advise was given to me by a Special forces survival expert, and thirdly, if you watch the research in the documentary i posted you'll see its blatantly true!

user redsoxjss has already listed you researchers who proved otherwise, not to mention Dr. Edward Howell. I tend to trust these guys more than a 'survival expert' who has done no reasearch in this field.

I don't see anything specific from redsoxjss on TEF. Also, Edward Howell was a quack and has been thoroughly debunked. The "food enzyme" theory is crap. If he's what you consider a trustworthy "researcher," then you're gonna have a bad time.

http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-2b.shtml

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/mp.html

One issue is that there's really not much research out there on cooked vs raw TEF. These touch on it:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248409001262

http://www.pnas.org/content/108/48/19199.short

And this one deals with the thermogenic effect of processing in general:

http://www.foodandnutritionresearch.net/index.php/fnr/article/viewArticle/5144/5755

The TL;DR version is that processing, whether cooking or pounding or something else, increases energy availability of food.

Sorry blabate, but who is this addressed to?

Context should be clear from the quoted text.

 

 

Ah yes, you most forgive me, am not the fastest car on the track.

No problem. For what it's worth, I think I was agreeing with you.

Sorry blabate, but who is this addressed to?

Context should be clear from the quoted text.

as when food is cooked, the body uses a considerable less amount of energy digesting it

blatantly false.

Not so fast. It's pretty much agreed that the TEF of raw food is higher than that of cooked. The cooking process does a bit of the digestion for you, breaking down complex carbs and proteins. The question is one of magnitude, which varies depending on the food and the type of cooking.

Raw foodies can make some nutty claims, but this one is pretty solid.

From what I heard you should ejaculate constantly to keep your man organ in shape but not right before a workout.

Constantly?!?

Well my response was in relation to what you said "There is zero evidence that GMOs pose any health risk.". I took a quick view over that list but I didn't see any referring to human consumption. Are there any? I am curious. That is more what I am concerned over. I don't care whether they harm rats because A. We are not rats. B. Rats don't live nearly as long as humans do.

There are a few performed on humans, sure, like http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v22/n2/full/nbt934.html. They're definitely much more rare than those on animals because they're costly and, frankly, not required. And again, we have real-world data, which is massive (billions of meals) and conclusively shows that GMOs are safe.

GMOs are subject to the same testing requirements as any other crop. If they're substantially equivalent to a known-safe crop and if new components (particularly proteins) pass a safety assessment, they don't need to be tested any further. If we didn't have the substantial equivalency exemption, we'd be constantly testing crops, even "natural" ones, every year.

Tests done on animals rarely correlate to usable data on humans.

That's incredibly untrue. Animal testing gave us vaccines, antibiotics, heart surgery, vascular sutures, anti-ulcer meds, insulin, anesthesia, pacemakers, leukemia and breast cancer treatments, epilepsy treatments, spinal cord and paralysis advancements, etc. The list goes on and on. It's a surprise when results DO NOT correlate in expected ways to humans. Researchers, especially now, are incredibly good at selecting animals that will provide the best correlation for a given experiment and at avoiding those that would be biologically unsuitable. It's not necessarily moral, but it's effective.

One of my main problems with GMO's is the little to zero regulation. They (the companies) determine whether the products are safe or not. The USDA seems complicit because despite all of their violations they still seem not to care. The USDA has broken a multitude of regulations and been fined themselves for not making sure that these companies are doing their environmental impact surveys and other things.

More regulation is fine with me (to a reasonable extent). I don't have an issue with cracking down on them, enforcing regulations more strictly, and gathering more evidence.

Ugh, probably pork ribs, I guess.

There is no evidence GMO's don't pose any health risk because there hasn't been any studies to see if they do. Also since they don't have to label GMO's that makes any study almost next to impossible.

Labeling and research have nothing to do with one another. Studies aren't going to rely on what's on the label.

As to "there hasn't been any studies," of course there have. Here are over 600: http://www.biofortified.org/genera/studies-for-genera/

More importantly, we have almost two decades of real-world use of GMOs with no attributable harm.

Little too lazy to read that link (no offense it's late), but I find it hard to believe crops that require more pesticides/herbicides are better for the environment.

It's not a terribly long link. I'm not sure exactly why the NAS found the crops better for the environment, but my guess would be that the glyphosate-based herbicides are significantly less harmful than the sulfonyls.

Also since these crops don't have to be labeled or even regulated if such a health hazard did exist it would be almost impossible to stop it because they cross pollinate with non-GMO crops and even infect many organic "non-GMO" crops. There are strains that have been banned that still aren't eradicated.

Cross-pollination and "infection" are true of all crops, though. That's not a scientific or biological issue. The problem is, as you noted, the regulation (or lack thereof) being far too favorable for the GMO manufacturers.

The problem is the business behind the GMOs, not the science

No one here said otherwise. Your long post should've focused on the business, not defending gmo's. Your overly done - and misguided - post (with lies) shows the corruption behind gmo's. You are not helping.

 

GMO's and the business behind them are one in the same.

 

edit: When you say GMO's are safe, you show you haven't looked into it.

If you want to call me a liar, you better step up with evidence, because otherwise you look like an idiot. I at least provided links.