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beforewisdom

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Posts posted by beforewisdom

  1. A long time back here someone posted a funny comic.

     

    It was describing a "vay-gun", not a vegan, but a fictictious humonoid species ala comic books who come from the vega solar system.

     

    I tried using searching this forum and Google with several strings but couldn't find it.

     

    Does anyone have a link?

     

    Thanks

  2. I'm taking berocca as my b vitamin.each tablet has 8.6 μg b12

     

    Is this a good source/enough b12?

     

    http://veganhealth.org/articles/dailyrecs

     

    http://veganhealth.org/articles/vitaminb12

     

     

    I also take a multi vitamin, liquid iron supplement(that has added b12, calcium).

     

    If you are a man you shouldn't take iron at all. It can build up and become toxic.

     

    Only started supplementing this year though after 3 years of thinking i wouldnt need to.But now im more cautious and want the best progress.

     

    Everything you need to know about vegan supplements and vegan nutrition on one page:

     

    http://veganhealth.org/articles/dailyrecs

  3. I am sure this is covered somewhere here...

    i am looking to clean my diet up..mainly raw. i have been mainly fruit raw for few days but looking something a little more balanced

    (more healthy fats/veggies)

     

    Raw diets may temporarily feel nice as they give overloaded systems a break, but they aren't good for the long term. The beliefs behind them aren't based on medicine or research. The best book on the subject is "Becoming Raw", it is written by a top RD and vegan who has a reputation for sticking to facts.

     

    If you are looking to eat healthy, try "Vegan For Life" by Jack Norris RD, another vegan.

     

    It doesn't have the glitz of the latest magic diet, but it will teach sensible vegan nutrition. In other words, you don't have to go to an extreme to clean up.

  4. Soy milk is a non-dairy beverage that is created by first soaking soybeans in water and then grinding this mixture. The mixture is then strained and the fluid that remains is soy milk. Many store bought brands are fortified with calcium, nutrients and vitamins to make it as nutrient dense as cow or sheep’s milk.

     

    Myth: Soy milk is Not as Healthy as Cow’s Milk

     

    I don't disagree with any of this, but anyone can say anything on the web. Do you have any references to people with relevant educations, relevant research who are not paid by big dairy, who are not paid by big soy, who are saying the things you are?

  5. Wamrage;

     

    I had similar thoughts. I see many female Facebook friends who worship this one woman who makes youtube videos, blog posts etc advertising her rawness. They think she is in incredible shape because she has a flat stomach and has a chest. I reacted that way to her too, until one day I looked at her arms, legs, hips and jaw. They she just looked undernourished to me. Same thing with another "web personality" who made a big deal about being a raw, ex-vegan ( eating lots of salads and raw fed beef ).

     

    I think people, at least Americans, if they see someone with flat abs, especially with ab muscles showing, will not see the rest of the body and proclaim the person as being in shape, even if that rest of that person looks undernourished.

  6. To lose body fat you need to expend more calories than you consume.

     

    To grow muscle you need to overload the muscle with exercise, take in enough calories for the exercise, take in enough calories to fuel the cellular growth, get adequate sleep to allow the growth to happen and you need to take in enough protein.

     

    It doesn't matter where you get your calories and protein from.

     

    All else is commentary or bullshit.

     

    Is fat, fat?

     

    No.

     

    Is a carb a carb? Is a slice of white bread or a soda the same as eating a sweet potato ?

     

    There are healthy sources of fats and unhealthy ones.

     

    Your chicken and eggs have a ton of saturated fat, the bad kind as well as all sorts of chemicals, pathogens and filth from the factory farms from where they came from.

  7. Unless you are a scientist yourself you don't have the training to evaluate the validity of criticisms of the China Study. People can tell you anything and you wouldn't know if it was right. Its like one mechanic telling you another mechanic is full of bullshit. Unless you know anything about cars yourself you just have to trust one of those mechanics as telling you the truth.

     

    No disrespect to anyone, but raw foodists are full of bullshit. Their dietary beliefs contradict basic boiler plate medicine and physiology.

     

    I wouldn't trust any information from a raw food site or an anti=forks over knives site.

     

    I would go check out those claims out elsewhere.

     

    Again, ask yourself how someone knows what they know. Do they have a degree in what they talk about? Do they keep up with research in what they are talking about? What is their professional reputation like?

  8. Its all about asking yourself how that person knows what they claim to know.

     

    On webboards there often isn't an answer for that, beyond someone's anecdotal account, which isn't reliable information.

     

    The authors of many blog articles do not list their educations, do not list their credentials nor do they list how their article relates to the way they make their money.

     

    The sources of information recommended on my site is not my information, but citations to information written by people with authoritative credentials and educations.........not self appointed diet gurus, but registered dietitians with respected reputations in their field.

     

    So if you ask yourself if you can be sure that their nutrition advice is safe, if it is effective, you can ask yourself how they know what they know. You can look up their degrees, their publications, their reputations, etc.

  9. From

    http://www.orthorexia.com/index.php?page=katef

     

    The bolding in the quoted article is mostly mine.

     

    What is Orthorexia?

     

    Original Essay on Orthorexia

    First published in the October 1997 issue of YOGA JOURNAL.

     

    Twenty years ago I was a wholehearted, impassioned advocate of healing through food. In those days I was a cook and organic farmer at a large commune in upstate New York. Today, as a physician who practices alternative medicine, I still almost always recommend dietary improvement to my patients. How could I not? A low-fat, semivegetarian diet helps prevent nearly all major illnesses, and more focused dietary interventions can dramatically improve specific health problems. But I'm no longer the true believer in nutritional medicine I used to be.

     

    Where once I was enthusiastically evangelical, I've grown cautious. I can no longer console myself with the hope that one day a universal theory of eating will be discovered that can match people with the diets right for them. And I no longer have faith that dietary therapy is a uniformly wholesome intervention. I have come to regard it as I do drug therapy: as a useful treatment with serious potential side-effects.

     

    My disillusionment began in the old days at the commune. As staff cook I was required to prepare several separate meals at once to satisfy the insistent and conflicting demands of our members. All communes attract idealists; ours attracted food idealists. On a daily basis I encountered the chaos of contradictory nutritional theories.

     

    Our main entree was always vegetarian, but a vocal subgroup insisted we serve meat. Since many vegetarians would not eat from pots and pans contaminated by fleshly vibrations, the meat had to be cooked in a separate kitchen.

     

    We cooks also had to satisfy the vegans, who eschewed all milk and egg products. The rights of the Hindu-influenced crowd couldn't be neglected either. They insisted we omit the onion-family foods which, they believed, provoked sexual desire.

     

    For the raw-foodists we always laid out trays of sliced raw vegetables, but the macrobiotic adherents looked at these offerings with disgust. They would only eat cooked vegetables. Furthermore, they believed that only local, in-season vegetables should be eaten, which led to frequent and violent arguments about whether the commune should spend its money on lettuce in January.

     

    After watching these food wars for a while, I began to fantasize about writing a cookbook for eating theorists. Each food would come complete with a citation from one system or authority claiming it to be the most divine edible ever created; a second reference, from an opposing view, would damn it as the worst pestilence one human being ever fed to another.

     

    Finding examples wouldn't be difficult. I could pit the rules of various food theories against each other: Spicy food is bad; cayenne peppers are health-promoting. Fasting on oranges is healthy; citrus fruits are too acidic. Milk is good only for young cows (and pasteurized milk is even worse); boiled milk is the food of the gods. Fermented foods, such as sauerkraut, are essentially rotten; fermented foods aid digestion. Sweets are bad; honey is nature's most perfect food. Fruits are the ideal food; fruit causes candida. Vinegar is a poison; apple cider vinegar cures most illnesses. Proteins should not be combined with starches; aduki beans and brown rice should always be cooked together.

     

    Dietary methods of healing are often offered in the name of holism, one of the strongest ideals of alternative medicine. No doubt alternative health practitioners are compensating for the historical failure of modern medicine to take dietary treatment seriously enough. But by focusing single-mindedly on diet, such practitioners end up advocating a form of medicine as lacking in holistic perspective as the more traditional approaches they attempt to correct. It would be far more holistic to try to understand other elements in the patient's life before making dietary recommendations, and occasionally to temper those recommendations with that understanding.

     

    Orthorexia Nervosa

     

    Many of the most unbalanced people I have ever met are those who have devoted themselves to healthy eating. In fact, I believe some of them have actually contracted a novel eating disorder for which I have coined the name "orthorexia nervosa." The term uses "ortho," meaning straight, correct, and true, to modify "anorexia nervosa." Orthorexia nervosa refers to a pathological fixation on eating proper food.

     

    Orthorexia begins, innocently enough, as a desire to overcome chronic illness or to improve general health. But because it requires considerable willpower to adopt a diet that differs radically from the food habits of childhood and the surrounding culture, few accomplish the change gracefully. Most must resort to an iron self-discipline bolstered by a hefty dose of superiority over those who eat junk food. Over time, what to eat, how much, and the consequences of dietary indiscretion come to occupy a greater and greater proportion of the orthorexic's day.

     

    The act of eating pure food begins to carry pseudospiritual connotations. As orthorexia progresses, a day filled with sprouts, umeboshi plums, and amaranth biscuits comes to feel as holy as one spent serving the poor and homeless. When an orthorexic slips up (which may involve anything from devouring a single raisin to consuming a gallon of Haagen Dazs ice cream and a large pizza), he experiences a fall from grace and must perform numerous acts of penitence. These usually involve ever-stricter diets and fasts.

     

    This "kitchen spirituality" eventually reaches a point where the sufferer spends most of his time planning, purchasing, and eating meals. The orthorexic's inner life becomes dominated by efforts to resist temptation, self-condemnation for lapses, self-praise for success at complying with the chosen regime, and feelings of superiority over others less pure in their dietary habits.

     

    This transference of all of life's value into the act of eating makes orthorexia a true disorder. In this essential characteristic, orthorexia bears many similarities to the two well-known eating disorders anorexia and bulimia. Where the bulimic and anorexic focus on the quantity of food, the orthorexic fixates on its quality. All three give food an excessive place in the scheme of life.

     

    As often happens, my sensitivity to the problem of orthorexia comes through personal experience. I myself passed through a phase of extreme dietary purity.

     

    When I wasn't cooking at the commune, I managed the organic farm. This gave me constant access to fresh, high-quality produce. I became such a snob that I disdained any vegetable that had been plucked from the ground for more than 15 minutes. I was a total vegetarian, chewed each mouthful of food 50 times, always ate in a quiet place (which meant alone), and left my stomach partially empty at the end of each meal.

     

    After a year or so of this self-imposed regime, I felt clear-headed, strong, and self-righteous. I regarded the wretched, debauched souls about me downing their chocolate chip cookies and french fries as mere animals reduced to satisfying gustatory lusts. But I wasn't complacent in my virtue. Feeling an obligation to enlighten my weaker brethren, I continually lectured friends and family on the evils of refined, processed food and the dangers of pesticides and artificial fertilizers.

     

    I pursued wellness through healthy eating for years, but gradually I began to sense that something was going wrong. The poetry of my life was disappearing. My ability to carry on normal conversations was hindered by intrusive thoughts of food. The need to obtain meals free of meat, fat, and artificial chemicals had put nearly all social forms of eating beyond my reach. I was lonely and obsessed.

     

    Even when I became aware that my scrabbling in the dirt after raw vegetables and wild plants had become an obsession, I found it terribly difficult to free myself. I had been seduced by righteous eating.

     

    The problem of my life's meaning had been transferred inexorably to food, and I could not reclaim it.

     

    Tacos, Pizza, and a Milkshake

     

    I was eventually saved from the doom of eternal health-food addiction through two fortuitous events. The first occurred when my guru in eating--a vegan headed toward fruitarianism--suddenly abandoned his quest. "A revelation came to me last night in a dream," he said. "Rather than eat my sprouts alone, it would be better for me to share a pizza with some friends."

     

    His plaintive statement stirred me, but I could do nothing to change my way of life until a Benedictine monk named Brother David Steindl-Rast kindly applied some unorthodox techniques.

     

    I had met Brother David at a seminar he gave on the subject of gratitude. I offered to drive him home, and on the way back to the monastery, I bragged a bit about my oral self-discipline. Brother David's approach over the subsequent days was a marvelous case of teaching by example.

     

    The drive was long. In the late afternoon, we stopped for lunch at an unpromising Chinese restaurant in a small town. To our surprise, the food was authentic, the sauces were fragrant and tasty, the vegetables fresh, and the eggrolls crisp and free from MSG. We were both delighted.

     

    After I had eaten the small portion which sufficed to fill my stomach halfway, Brother David casually mentioned his belief that it was an offense against God to leave food uneaten on the table. Brother David was a slim man, so I found it hardly credible that he followed this precept generally. But he continued to eat so much that I felt good manners, if not actual spiritual guidance, required me to imitate his example. I filled my belly for the first time in a year.

     

    Then he upped the ante. "I always think that ice cream goes well with Chinese food, don't you?" he asked. Ignoring my incoherent reply, Brother David directed us to an ice cream parlor and purchased me a triple-scoop cone. As we ate our ice cream, Brother David led me on a two-mile walk. To keep my mind from dwelling on my offense against the health-food gods, he edified me with an unending stream of spiritual stories. Later that evening, he ate an immense dinner in the monastery dining room, all the while urging me to take more of one dish or another.

     

    I understood his point. But what mattered more to me was the fact that a spiritual authority, a man for whom I had the greatest respect, was giving me permission to break my health-food vows. It proved a liberating stroke.

     

    Yet more than a month passed before I finally decided to make a definitive break. I was filled with feverish anticipation. Hordes of long-suppressed gluttonous desires, their legitimacy restored, clamored to receive their due. On the drive into town, I planned and replanned my junk-food menu. Within 10 minutes of arriving, I had eaten three tacos, a medium pizza, and a large milkshake. Too stuffed to violate my former vows further, I brought the ice cream sandwich and banana split home. My stomach felt stretched to my knees.

     

    The next morning I felt guilty and defiled. Only the memory of Brother David kept me from embarking on a five-day fast. (I fasted only two days.) It took me at least two more years to attain a middle way and eat easily, without rigid calculation or wild swings.

     

    Anyone who has ever suffered from anorexia or bulimia will recognize classic patterns in this story: the cyclic extremes, the obsession, the separation from others. These are all symptoms of an eating disorder. Having experienced them so vividly in myself 20 years ago, I cannot overlook their presence in others.

     

    A Menu or a Life?

     

    Consider Andrea, a patient of mine who suffered from chronic asthma. When she came to see me, she depended on several medications to stay alive. But with my help, she managed to free herself from all drugs.

     

    First, we identified foods to which Andrea was sensitive and removed them from her diet. Milk was the first to go, then wheat, soy, and corn. After eliminating these four foods, the asthma symptoms decreased so much that Andrea was able to cut out one medication. But she wasn't satisfied.

     

    Diligent effort identified other allergens: eggs, avocado, tomatoes, barley, rye, chicken, beef, turkey, and tuna. These too Andrea eliminated and was soon able to drop another drug entirely. Next went broccoli, lettuce, apples, and trout--and the rest of her medications.

     

    Unfortunately, after about three months of feeling well she began to discover sensitivities to other foods. Oranges, peaches, celery, and rice didn't suit her, nor did potatoes, turkey, or amaranth biscuits. The only foods she could definitely tolerate were lamb and (strangely) white sugar.

     

    Since she couldn't live on those foods alone, Andrea adopted a complex rotation diet, alternating grains on a meal-by-meal basis, with occasional complete abstention to allow her to "clear." She did the same for vegetables with somewhat more ease, since she had a greater variety to choose from.

     

    Recently, Andrea came in for a visit and described the present state of her life. Wherever she goes, she carries a supply of her own food. She doesn't go many places. Most of the time she stays at home and thinks carefully about what to eat next, because if she slips up, the consequences continue for weeks. The asthma doesn't come back, but she develops headaches, nausea, and strange moods. She must continuously exert her will against cravings for foods as seemingly innocent as tomatoes and bread.

     

    She was pleased with her improvement and referred many patients to me. But I began to feel ill whenever I saw her name on my schedule. The first rule of medicine is "above all, do no harm." Had I really helped Andrea, or had I harmed her? If she had been cured of cancer or multiple sclerosis, the development of an obsession might not be too high a price to pay. But when we started treatment, all she had was asthma. If she took her four medications, she also had a life. Now all she has is a menu. She might have been better off if she had never heard of dietary medicine.

     

    I am generally lifted out of such melancholy reflections by success stories. I have another client whose rheumatoid arthritis was thrown into total remission by one simple intervention: adding foods high in trace minerals to his diet. Before he met me, he took prednisone, gold shots, and anti-inflammatories. Now he has gone a full year without a problem. Seeing him encourages me not to give up entirely on making dietary recommendations.

     

    But my enthusiasm will remain tempered. Like all medical interventions--like all solutions to difficult problems--dietary medicine dwells in a grey zone of unclarity and imperfection. It's neither a simple, ideal treatment, as some of its proponents believe, nor the complete waste of time conventional medicine has too long presumed it to be. Diet is an ambiguous and powerful tool, too complex and emotionally charged to be prescribed lightly, yet too powerful to be ignored.

     

    — Steven Bratman, M.D.

  10. I've noticed a number of people coming here to discuss orthorexia, so I thought I would open up this thread. Orthorexia is a word for a new kind of eating disorder.

     

    Many people who care about their health and who are willing to do something about it think that the word "orthorexia" is a criticism of them, their exercise regime or their diet.

     

    As someone in another thread put it, the question is whether you control your diet or if your diet controls you.

     

    Orthorexics become obsessive compulsive about following rules for healthy eating even if those rules hurt their health or get in the way of them having a happy life.

  11. Everybody say's there's no way to spot reduce fat, but I say that's total bull..... It's called Liposuction.

     

    Okay, there no GOOD way to spot reduce fat

     

    I haven't researched it, but I've heard that liposuction removes the fat cells in specific spot. So, if someone overeats after that, the fat has to go to another spot on their body, one where they might like it even less.

     

    For example, someone may get their stomach, ass and thighs liposuctioned.....they they might start accumulating huge amounts of fat on their arms and shoulders.

  12. Since this is basically a healthy vegan forum -- does anybody think they have a healthy eating obsession.

     

    People who think they are crazy( out of touch with reality ) aren't crazy, because they are still in touch with reality enough to see that something is wrong. If a person has orthorexia, they wouldn't THINK they had it, so they wouldn't answer your question.

     

     

    Ever since I became a vegan, I read a bunch of books, watched a bunch of videos, and read a bunch of articles which lead to an obsessive healthy eating pattern. I wouldn't think it is a bad thing but find it hard to explain to friends and family why I wont eat a bunch of foods. It can take control of your life being too healthy when it comes to healthy foods for vegans

     

    Orthorexia isn't about being devoted to healthy eating. It is about being obsessed with dietary rules to the point that you either destroy your health with that obsession or that maintaining your way of eating takes over your life such that you don't have a life.

     

    Supposedly if you are eating a vegan diet for ethical reasons or because you read about medical facts you aren't following rules for the sake of following rules which orthorexics do. If you are healthy while doing it, have interests OTHER than your diet, have a social life, etc you aren't letting your diet take over your life and you aren't orthorexic.

     

    Setting aside the ethical concerns of someone who is a vegan, you have a healthy relationship with your diet, if your diet is nothing more than what you eat. If you get offended if someone says something disparaging about your diet or you feel like a failure if you don't adhere to the rules, then you are making psychological issues for yourself that MAY lead to orthorexia.

  13. I agree with you. In a forum scenario such as this your post was/is amazing. I guess my point was if people take this info and relay it to others directly that they are trying to persuade than it is best to go about it in a less "you are wrong" sort of tactic if they want those people to be receptive of the information.

     

    I agree with you if you are talking people being condescending or ridiculing to others. People don't listen when they are being dissed.

     

    I disagree that people shouldn't be told the truth when they are mistaken. They can't change if they don't hear the right information.

  14. hahahhahahahahah.......wait for it......haaahahahahahahahaha. Nicely put, I enjoyed your comments/argument very much.

     

    Thank you.

     

    I still don't think the best way to help people change is to hate on them and what they are doing.

     

    I don't think telling the truth that other people don't want to hear is "hate". I think calling that "hating on them" emotionally manipulative. It communicates the message

     

    "Don't have a public discussion that will expose me to things I don't want to hear OR I will label you as a bad person to discourage you from doing that"

     

    I'm not saying what that is what you are are doing, I am speaking about that phrase in general.

     

    I agree with you that ridiculing someone isn't the way to persuade them to do something differently.

     

    My own approach is to write the truth, plainly, so there is no mistake about my opinion. I believe it always has a positive effect, on someone, somewhere, if not now than down the road.

     

    If people go around saying things that are patently untrue, in a very public, in a very vociferous way other people are going to something about it. It will lead to public debate and public ridicule/venting of frustration........hence the quote from the Jezebel article.

  15. The word "vegan" was coined in the 1940s to refer to people who have the ethical belief that it is wrong to exploit animals ( use for our own reasons only ).

     

    Thus, one can eat a 100% plant based diet without being a vegan.

     

    Raw foodism started in the late 19th century as an alternative health kick. While some raw foodists are also vegans the two sets of things don't logically have anything to do with each other.

     

    Raw foodists that food prepared below a certain temperature have beneficial things to human health that cooked foods do not.

     

    The only book that looks at the facts (scientific evidence ) around this idea is "Becoming Raw".

     

    Most of the scientific evidence seems to indicate that the benefits of raw foodism, if any, are really the benefits of cutting out junk and increasing produce consumption.

  16. Nah. Society and culture is trying it's hardest to make us feel ashamed and apologetic for being different.

    Many times it works, there are many apologetic vegans out there. "I'm vegan. Um, I'm sorry. If that makes you uncomfortable that is. I'll be quiet".

     

    I agree. Being ashamed/apologetic about what you are about or what you support doesn't help you or what you support. People can sense it. If you don't feel good about it, why should they? That is why I don't listen to animal protection orgs that ask me not to use the word "vegan" when volunteering for them.

     

    That is only part of the story though.

     

    Veganism, AR and vegan diets tend to be freak magnets. There are a number of loud, foolish and obnoxious people giving all 3 of those things a bad name.

     

    You have to be aware of and honest about those things too, picking your battle accordingly.

     

    In situations that have nothing to do with diet ( work, other pursuits ), I will wait until someone else brings it up. If they do, I will not dance around it. Like others wrote here, the best way to undo the damage to the word is to be a cool person and cool vegan.

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