8 ms·

Does Carnitine from Red Meat Cause Heart Disease?

60 points by sridca 8y ago

tracker1 8y ago
Thank you @sridca for linking to this article. It's really amazing how much effort the religion of vegetarianism flows in a lot of sources and research that follows. edit: I'm not opposed to a mostly vegetable sourced diet. A lot of people do it for moral/ethical reasons, but hard science it isn't and has never been. Eggs are a nearly perfect food, and fatty fish is awesome. I do like other sources of meat as well. I do feel that most people on vegetarian diets don't get enough healthy (unrefined) fats in their diet. I've read enough about diet and nutrition in the past two years that the only consistent thing seems to be avoid overly processed anything. Specifically Sugar, refined grains, refined vegetable oils and excessive gmo corn and soy. If most people just did that they'd be much better off. If you're diabetic or very fat, you'll probably do better integrating a keto macro profile. Otherwise, or in addition, it's probably a good idea to stop snacking and integrate a fasting regimen.
- DenisM 8y ago
  How is "gmo corn" worse than "just corn"?
  - tracker1 8y ago
    Most commercial corn is modified (by gmo or breeding) at this point... Corn and Soy are more inflammatory than other grains and it's fairly common to see more allergen response from GMO corn, soy and even wheat over more traditional strains (5-10 times more likely iirc).
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      > Corn and Soy are more inflammatory than other grains I'm sorry, but what do you mean by this?
    - DenisM 8y ago
      > fairly common to see more allergen response from GMO corn, soy and even wheat over more traditional strains Citation please?
      - tracker1 8y ago
        Look at a couple of the books/articles/interviews by JJ Virgin to start... there's many more references that will spread out from there. I'm sorry but I've done a lot of reading over the past couple years mostly to expand personal knowledge, I'm bad about remembering all the individual articles to cite and mostly rely on google for what I can remember. Tom Bilyeu and HVMN channels on youtube also have some great content. DietDoctor.com is another good resource. - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnYMOamNKLGVlJgRUbamveA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnYMOamNKLGVlJgRUbamveA - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLHIpELaHyVsSaQPJnL0n3w https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLHIpELaHyVsSaQPJnL0n3w - https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/modern-wheat-health-nightmare https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/modern-wheat-health-nig... edit: if someone could explain the downvotes? edit2: you know, I didn't have a lot of time to look up a bunch of stuff... I provided what I could... I didn't mean to link to the image, but an article with it, and in the end, whatever... the vegetarians have spoken and down modded anything disagreeing into oblivion without any counter argument with citation, or any actual experiments confirming their own bias.
        DenisM 8y ago
        Did you just link to a PNG file [1] titled "7 foods to avoid on a virgin diet" as a proof of some sort? I mean this file has literally no informational value - it's an opinion of unidentified persons based on unidentified research data. What does this have to do with your earlier assertion about GMO corn being allergenic? [1] http://jjvirgin.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/TVD-7FoodsToAvoid_FRIDGE.png http://jjvirgin.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2...
        JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
        Well you posted YouTube videos...
        8y ago
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      "or breeding"? Corn was created by breeding from a native plant that doesn't really resemble corn at all, thousands of years ago. So 100% of corn was created "by breeding".
    - hnuser123456 8y ago
      Corn isn't even a natural plant to begin with. It used to be a grass. Humans created corn with artificial selection, same with dogs.
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    If the genetic modification is to make it glyphosate resistant, there’s a higher likelihood that the corn will have glyphosate in it.
    - DenisM 8y ago
      I don't think that's true. There are three broad categories of produce: Organic, non-Organic/GMO, non-Organic/non-GMO. Organic is grown without pesticides at all, but given higher prices it does not compete with gmo-non-organic or non-gmo-non-organic. For non-organic food, both GMO and non-GMO plants are treated with various pesticides because those pests aren't removing themselves. The GMOs are treated with a smaller number of higher doses of glyphosate earlier in the plant's life, and no other pesticides. Non-GMO plants are treated with lower doses of many varieties of pesticides across a longer period of time. If anything, non-GMO products should have more pesticide residue on them, and those pesticides are less studied.
      - opo 8y ago
        >...Organic is grown without pesticides at all, I don't think that is true: >...Organic farming, just like other forms of agriculture, still uses pesticides and fungicides to prevent critters from destroying their crops. >...According to the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, the top two organic fungicides, copper and sulfur, were used at a rate of 4 and 34 pounds per acre in 1971 1. In contrast, the synthetic fungicides only required a rate of 1.6 lbs per acre, less than half the amount of the organic alternatives. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogsscientificamericancomscience-sushi20110718mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogs...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- yesenadam 8y ago
  >It's really amazing how much effort the religion of vegetarianism flows in a lot of sources and research that follows. It's totally unclear to me what that sentence is supposed to mean. >I'm not opposed to a mostly vegetable sourced diet. A lot of people do it for moral/ethical reasons, but hard science it isn't and has never been. (That sounds to me (an 'ethical vegan') akin to "I'm not opposed to a mostly non-slave workforce. A lot of people have renounced slavery for moral/ethical reasons, but hard science it isn't and has never been.") Maybe the "it" of the "hard science it isn't" half of the sentence refers the 'mostly vegetable sourced diet' of people who are vegetarian for reasons of their own health, which the rest of your comment seems to talk about exclusively , but you didn't make that clear. It seems probable that you meant to claim that "there's no scientific consensus that a vegetarian diet is healthier" (i.e. for humans). I won't comment on whether that's true or not, but just note that what you actually said was rather different. I think. It was confusing.
  - porpoisely 8y ago
    There is no such thing as an "ethical vegan". Veganism is unethical by definition. A vegan eats more animals than a carnivore because every vegan meal is full of insect, rodent, small mammal, worm, etc parts. A vegan diet causes far more environmental destruction as it requires exotic plants, fruits, etc from the most lush jungles around the world. Look at the human, societal and environmental devastation that just avocados and bananas cause. And a vegan diet is unnatural because humans cannot naturally survive on it. And no human vegan society has ever existed because a human cannot survive in nature on a vegan diet. If someone took you to a middle of any jungle, prairie, etc, you couldn't survive on your vegan diet. And a vegan diet cannot be sourced locally anywhere unlike an omnivore ( or even a carnivore ) diet. An omnivore can survive on local sources. A vegan cannot. And of course vegans require unnatural lab processed supplements to stay alive. A vegan diet kills the more animals, destroy more of the environment, is the most non-locally sourced and is the most unnatural diet. Not to mention it harms humans who are vegans because they are deprived of nutrients. If some evil person wanted to create the most unethical diet, they'd create veganism. The most ethical and humane diet is the omnivore diet. It's the most optimally good for humans, animals, environment, society.
drilldrive 8y ago
So are there any foods that are uncontroversially known to predispose people to heart attacks? It seems that just about everything is contentious in nutrition science these days.
- DVassallo 8y ago
  Yes. Refined carbs, especially fructose. Unlike red meat which we've been eating for 200,000 years, we've only started eating refined carbs in large quantities for the last ~50 years.
- tracker1 8y ago
  Refined sugars and other highly inflammatory foods in general increase risk over time. Metabolic syndrome seems to be the biggest correlation to most disease. Most refined sugars are half or more Fructose and we get in general 30 times the amount of sugar on average today compared to 120 years ago. We also get far more refined grains, and refined vegetable (seed) oils. High fructose intake in particular leads to a lot of disruption, although increased and continuous carbohydrate and intake of refined oils is seeing more evidence of being a large impact as well. Most of my reading the past couple years seems to indicate that minimizing overly refined foods in general and reducing snacking and increasing fasting cycles (intermittent and extended) are some of the better changes we (as a people) could make beyond sugar specifically and refined foods in general. edit: note: the only organ that can really process fructose is the liver, and in quantities often consumed, the effect is worse than alcoholism.
  - drilldrive 8y ago
    Yes, I agree with you personally that refined foods are terrible for you long term, but is there an expert consensus on the issue? And I do not think there is a consensus on sugars in particular. Regarding refined grains, do you have a take on house-hold breads? I mean, the breads are highly processed, and yet I do not know of an alternative for sandwiches and the like.
    - tracker1 8y ago
DVassallo 8y ago
Homo sapiens has been eating red meat for 200,000 years. It is very unlikely it is net harmful to us.
- AQuantized 8y ago
  From an evolutionary perspective, all you can conclude from that is that it was unlikely to be a net detriment in the prevailing conditions of the vast majority of that time. Heart disease in later life was unlikely to be a substantial downside compared with the nutrient and caloric density of the meal throughout most of human history. Now, with much easier access to a wide range of foods, and a much higher chance of surviving to be killed by heart disease, that may no longer be the case.
  - rovyko 8y ago
    This is a very good point that I see people miss quite often. Evolutionary pressure doesn't mean we adapt to optimize lifespan and health in our environment. The primary driver is the survivability of subsequent generations, not to reduce suffering.
    - DVassallo 8y ago
      Alive ancestors help the subsequent generations.
      - firethief 8y ago
        But they've already done that, so it seems late to optimize for having reproductively successful ancestors
        DVassallo 8y ago
        People with living parents and grandparents would have likely had a better chance of survival than those without living family members. Thus, those with genes that have adapted to live longer and healthier would still have had an evolutionary benefit, despite no reproductive benefits. It might be true even today, let alone in the caveman era.
rovyko 8y ago
Interesting article, I was under the impression that the link between heart disease meat consumption was more strongly established. It's important to note that this article is from 2013, so I wonder how much has changed since. Joe Rogan hosted a nice debate between two scientists in the field, one of whom was a strict vegan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtqCBimr6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtqCBimr6U.
- drilldrive 8y ago
  How is a layman supposed to differentiate between the author of this article and the authors of the studies done? I take it for granted that both sides consist of experts in the field, and yet the positions taken are radically different from one another. I would assume a priori that the vegan side would be more widely supported amongst the experts (to say nothing of its merit), only on the basis of veganism being more congruent with the standard compassion of postmodernism.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    Vegan/Vegetarianism is the driving differentiation in terms of opinion. Common sense sides more with the omnivore pov imho, but I don't hold it against individuals for choosing a vegetarian/vegan path.
    - porpoisely 8y ago
      You should hold it against them because veganism ( and to a lesser degree vegetarianism ) is morally wrong as it the most environmentally destructive and the most unnatural healthy diet. Veganism is the worst diet you can choose for your health, the health of the environment and causes the harm to animals ( mostly small mammals, insects and worms ). You can see the absurdity of veganism as they proudly support locally sourced organic food but their diet makes "locally sourced organic food" an impossibility. A vegan anywhere on earth will die without importing avocados, all kinds of seeds, vegetation, etc from all over the world and still be lacking nutrients and have to resort to lab processed supplements. Real "natural" and "organic". And omnivore ( a diet of every human society ) can have diet from locally sources. You can have a homestead almost anywhere and as an omnivore survive just from your own homestead. A vegan homestead can't exist anywhere because you can't grow all the necessary vegetation and supplements to survive. Veganism is one of these great lies that seem "good" on surface but dig a little deeper and people will see what an absurd notion it is.
paulcole 8y ago
This is what’s so wonderful about nutrition. There’s something for everyone! Just decide what you want to eat, search until you find evidence in favor of that diet, and then stop looking.
drdaeman 8y ago
Sorry, can't resist to leave an obligatory note mentioning Betteridge's law of headlines. Nonetheless, a genuinely interesting article.
Svoka 8y ago
This person clearly has strong believe in "meat is healthy" and tries to find proof of that, and provides multiple links to healthy meat blog posts. I mean, with such attitude one can confirm anything. But for some reason overwhelming majority of scientists claim that consuming meat in quantities we do in North America is not good for health and environment on multiple dimensions: cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, infections, kidney disease, liver disease, cattle waste, deforestation and many others. HH & authors attitude towards this article really reminds me some cringe movements like anti-vaxers or some other shit, where people choose what they want first and then find confirmation for it.
- jeremyw 8y ago
  I appreciate the skepticism. But you might want to look at the foundational evidence for meat-causes-(bad thing) health claims. It's all incredibly weak and confounded, and would never be considered evidence in other fields.
  - markstos 8y ago
    Please provide any evidence for your claim.
    - sridca 8y ago
      Nutrition epidemiology studies are not scientific experiments; they are wildly inaccurate, questionnaire-based guesses (hypotheses) about the possible connections between foods and diseases. This approach has been widely criticized as scientifically invalid [see here(1) and here(2)], yet continues to be used by influential researchers at prestigious institutions. Even if you think epidemiological methods are sound, at best they can only generate hypotheses that then need to be tested in clinical trials. Instead, these hypotheses are often prematurely trumpeted to the public as implicit fact in the form of media headlines, dietary guidelines, and well-placed commission reports like this one. Tragically, more than 80%(3) of these guesses are later proved wrong in clinical trials. With a failure rate this high, nutrition epidemiologists would be better off flipping a coin to decide which foods cause human disease. (1) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2018.00105/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2018.00105... (2) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2698337 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2698337 (3) https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2011.00506.x https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-... Ref: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/201901/eat-lancets-plant-based-planet-10-things-you-need-know https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/20190...
markstos 8y ago
Recent Harvard research found that we need to replace beef and dairy to avoid climate catastrophe. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2018.1528965?af=R& https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2018.1... Harvard's finding is consistent with the drawdown.org research that found plant-rich diets are a top solution to climate change. (4th of 80). https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank
arisAlexis 8y ago
This article is written in a very biased unscientific way and I wonder why it got so many upvotes. I get that people like meat here but.
- markstos 8y ago
  What's one example where it is unscientific?

60 points by sridca 8y ago

Thank you @sridca for linking to this article. It's really amazing how much effort the religion of vegetarianism flows in a lot of sources and research that follows. edit: I'm not opposed to a mostly vegetable sourced diet. A lot of people do it for moral/ethical reasons, but hard science it isn't and has never been. Eggs are a nearly perfect food, and fatty fish is awesome. I do like other sources of meat as well. I do feel that most people on vegetarian diets don't get enough healthy (unrefined) fats in their diet. I've read enough about diet and nutrition in the past two years that the only consistent thing seems to be avoid overly processed anything. Specifically Sugar, refined grains, refined vegetable oils and excessive gmo corn and soy. If most people just did that they'd be much better off. If you're diabetic or very fat, you'll probably do better integrating a keto macro profile. Otherwise, or in addition, it's probably a good idea to stop snacking and integrate a fasting regimen.

DenisM 8y ago
How is "gmo corn" worse than "just corn"?
- tracker1 8y ago
  Most commercial corn is modified (by gmo or breeding) at this point... Corn and Soy are more inflammatory than other grains and it's fairly common to see more allergen response from GMO corn, soy and even wheat over more traditional strains (5-10 times more likely iirc).
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    > Corn and Soy are more inflammatory than other grains I'm sorry, but what do you mean by this?
  - DenisM 8y ago
    > fairly common to see more allergen response from GMO corn, soy and even wheat over more traditional strains Citation please?
    - tracker1 8y ago
      Look at a couple of the books/articles/interviews by JJ Virgin to start... there's many more references that will spread out from there. I'm sorry but I've done a lot of reading over the past couple years mostly to expand personal knowledge, I'm bad about remembering all the individual articles to cite and mostly rely on google for what I can remember. Tom Bilyeu and HVMN channels on youtube also have some great content. DietDoctor.com is another good resource. - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnYMOamNKLGVlJgRUbamveA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnYMOamNKLGVlJgRUbamveA - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLHIpELaHyVsSaQPJnL0n3w https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLHIpELaHyVsSaQPJnL0n3w - https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/modern-wheat-health-nightmare https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/modern-wheat-health-nig... edit: if someone could explain the downvotes? edit2: you know, I didn't have a lot of time to look up a bunch of stuff... I provided what I could... I didn't mean to link to the image, but an article with it, and in the end, whatever... the vegetarians have spoken and down modded anything disagreeing into oblivion without any counter argument with citation, or any actual experiments confirming their own bias.
      - DenisM 8y ago
        Did you just link to a PNG file [1] titled "7 foods to avoid on a virgin diet" as a proof of some sort? I mean this file has literally no informational value - it's an opinion of unidentified persons based on unidentified research data. What does this have to do with your earlier assertion about GMO corn being allergenic? [1] http://jjvirgin.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/TVD-7FoodsToAvoid_FRIDGE.png http://jjvirgin.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2...
      - JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
        Well you posted YouTube videos...
      - 8y ago
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    "or breeding"? Corn was created by breeding from a native plant that doesn't really resemble corn at all, thousands of years ago. So 100% of corn was created "by breeding".
  - hnuser123456 8y ago
    Corn isn't even a natural plant to begin with. It used to be a grass. Humans created corn with artificial selection, same with dogs.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  If the genetic modification is to make it glyphosate resistant, there’s a higher likelihood that the corn will have glyphosate in it.
  - DenisM 8y ago
    I don't think that's true. There are three broad categories of produce: Organic, non-Organic/GMO, non-Organic/non-GMO. Organic is grown without pesticides at all, but given higher prices it does not compete with gmo-non-organic or non-gmo-non-organic. For non-organic food, both GMO and non-GMO plants are treated with various pesticides because those pests aren't removing themselves. The GMOs are treated with a smaller number of higher doses of glyphosate earlier in the plant's life, and no other pesticides. Non-GMO plants are treated with lower doses of many varieties of pesticides across a longer period of time. If anything, non-GMO products should have more pesticide residue on them, and those pesticides are less studied.
    - opo 8y ago
      >...Organic is grown without pesticides at all, I don't think that is true: >...Organic farming, just like other forms of agriculture, still uses pesticides and fungicides to prevent critters from destroying their crops. >...According to the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, the top two organic fungicides, copper and sulfur, were used at a rate of 4 and 34 pounds per acre in 1971 1. In contrast, the synthetic fungicides only required a rate of 1.6 lbs per acre, less than half the amount of the organic alternatives. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogsscientificamericancomscience-sushi20110718mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogs...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yesenadam 8y ago
>It's really amazing how much effort the religion of vegetarianism flows in a lot of sources and research that follows. It's totally unclear to me what that sentence is supposed to mean. >I'm not opposed to a mostly vegetable sourced diet. A lot of people do it for moral/ethical reasons, but hard science it isn't and has never been. (That sounds to me (an 'ethical vegan') akin to "I'm not opposed to a mostly non-slave workforce. A lot of people have renounced slavery for moral/ethical reasons, but hard science it isn't and has never been.") Maybe the "it" of the "hard science it isn't" half of the sentence refers the 'mostly vegetable sourced diet' of people who are vegetarian for reasons of their own health, which the rest of your comment seems to talk about exclusively , but you didn't make that clear. It seems probable that you meant to claim that "there's no scientific consensus that a vegetarian diet is healthier" (i.e. for humans). I won't comment on whether that's true or not, but just note that what you actually said was rather different. I think. It was confusing.
- porpoisely 8y ago
  There is no such thing as an "ethical vegan". Veganism is unethical by definition. A vegan eats more animals than a carnivore because every vegan meal is full of insect, rodent, small mammal, worm, etc parts. A vegan diet causes far more environmental destruction as it requires exotic plants, fruits, etc from the most lush jungles around the world. Look at the human, societal and environmental devastation that just avocados and bananas cause. And a vegan diet is unnatural because humans cannot naturally survive on it. And no human vegan society has ever existed because a human cannot survive in nature on a vegan diet. If someone took you to a middle of any jungle, prairie, etc, you couldn't survive on your vegan diet. And a vegan diet cannot be sourced locally anywhere unlike an omnivore ( or even a carnivore ) diet. An omnivore can survive on local sources. A vegan cannot. And of course vegans require unnatural lab processed supplements to stay alive. A vegan diet kills the more animals, destroy more of the environment, is the most non-locally sourced and is the most unnatural diet. Not to mention it harms humans who are vegans because they are deprived of nutrients. If some evil person wanted to create the most unethical diet, they'd create veganism. The most ethical and humane diet is the omnivore diet. It's the most optimally good for humans, animals, environment, society.

drilldrive 8y ago

So are there any foods that are uncontroversially known to predispose people to heart attacks? It seems that just about everything is contentious in nutrition science these days.

DVassallo 8y ago
Yes. Refined carbs, especially fructose. Unlike red meat which we've been eating for 200,000 years, we've only started eating refined carbs in large quantities for the last ~50 years.
tracker1 8y ago
Refined sugars and other highly inflammatory foods in general increase risk over time. Metabolic syndrome seems to be the biggest correlation to most disease. Most refined sugars are half or more Fructose and we get in general 30 times the amount of sugar on average today compared to 120 years ago. We also get far more refined grains, and refined vegetable (seed) oils. High fructose intake in particular leads to a lot of disruption, although increased and continuous carbohydrate and intake of refined oils is seeing more evidence of being a large impact as well. Most of my reading the past couple years seems to indicate that minimizing overly refined foods in general and reducing snacking and increasing fasting cycles (intermittent and extended) are some of the better changes we (as a people) could make beyond sugar specifically and refined foods in general. edit: note: the only organ that can really process fructose is the liver, and in quantities often consumed, the effect is worse than alcoholism.
- drilldrive 8y ago
  Yes, I agree with you personally that refined foods are terrible for you long term, but is there an expert consensus on the issue? And I do not think there is a consensus on sugars in particular. Regarding refined grains, do you have a take on house-hold breads? I mean, the breads are highly processed, and yet I do not know of an alternative for sandwiches and the like.
  - tracker1 8y ago

DVassallo 8y ago

Homo sapiens has been eating red meat for 200,000 years. It is very unlikely it is net harmful to us.

AQuantized 8y ago
From an evolutionary perspective, all you can conclude from that is that it was unlikely to be a net detriment in the prevailing conditions of the vast majority of that time. Heart disease in later life was unlikely to be a substantial downside compared with the nutrient and caloric density of the meal throughout most of human history. Now, with much easier access to a wide range of foods, and a much higher chance of surviving to be killed by heart disease, that may no longer be the case.
- rovyko 8y ago
  This is a very good point that I see people miss quite often. Evolutionary pressure doesn't mean we adapt to optimize lifespan and health in our environment. The primary driver is the survivability of subsequent generations, not to reduce suffering.
  - DVassallo 8y ago
    Alive ancestors help the subsequent generations.
    - firethief 8y ago
      But they've already done that, so it seems late to optimize for having reproductively successful ancestors
      - DVassallo 8y ago
        People with living parents and grandparents would have likely had a better chance of survival than those without living family members. Thus, those with genes that have adapted to live longer and healthier would still have had an evolutionary benefit, despite no reproductive benefits. It might be true even today, let alone in the caveman era.

rovyko 8y ago

Interesting article, I was under the impression that the link between heart disease meat consumption was more strongly established. It's important to note that this article is from 2013, so I wonder how much has changed since. Joe Rogan hosted a nice debate between two scientists in the field, one of whom was a strict vegan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtqCBimr6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtqCBimr6U.

drilldrive 8y ago
How is a layman supposed to differentiate between the author of this article and the authors of the studies done? I take it for granted that both sides consist of experts in the field, and yet the positions taken are radically different from one another. I would assume a priori that the vegan side would be more widely supported amongst the experts (to say nothing of its merit), only on the basis of veganism being more congruent with the standard compassion of postmodernism.
- tracker1 8y ago
  Vegan/Vegetarianism is the driving differentiation in terms of opinion. Common sense sides more with the omnivore pov imho, but I don't hold it against individuals for choosing a vegetarian/vegan path.
  - porpoisely 8y ago
    You should hold it against them because veganism ( and to a lesser degree vegetarianism ) is morally wrong as it the most environmentally destructive and the most unnatural healthy diet. Veganism is the worst diet you can choose for your health, the health of the environment and causes the harm to animals ( mostly small mammals, insects and worms ). You can see the absurdity of veganism as they proudly support locally sourced organic food but their diet makes "locally sourced organic food" an impossibility. A vegan anywhere on earth will die without importing avocados, all kinds of seeds, vegetation, etc from all over the world and still be lacking nutrients and have to resort to lab processed supplements. Real "natural" and "organic". And omnivore ( a diet of every human society ) can have diet from locally sources. You can have a homestead almost anywhere and as an omnivore survive just from your own homestead. A vegan homestead can't exist anywhere because you can't grow all the necessary vegetation and supplements to survive. Veganism is one of these great lies that seem "good" on surface but dig a little deeper and people will see what an absurd notion it is.

paulcole 8y ago

This is what’s so wonderful about nutrition. There’s something for everyone! Just decide what you want to eat, search until you find evidence in favor of that diet, and then stop looking.

drdaeman 8y ago

Sorry, can't resist to leave an obligatory note mentioning Betteridge's law of headlines. Nonetheless, a genuinely interesting article.

Svoka 8y ago

This person clearly has strong believe in "meat is healthy" and tries to find proof of that, and provides multiple links to healthy meat blog posts. I mean, with such attitude one can confirm anything. But for some reason overwhelming majority of scientists claim that consuming meat in quantities we do in North America is not good for health and environment on multiple dimensions: cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, infections, kidney disease, liver disease, cattle waste, deforestation and many others. HH & authors attitude towards this article really reminds me some cringe movements like anti-vaxers or some other shit, where people choose what they want first and then find confirmation for it.

jeremyw 8y ago
I appreciate the skepticism. But you might want to look at the foundational evidence for meat-causes-(bad thing) health claims. It's all incredibly weak and confounded, and would never be considered evidence in other fields.
- markstos 8y ago
  Please provide any evidence for your claim.
  - sridca 8y ago
    Nutrition epidemiology studies are not scientific experiments; they are wildly inaccurate, questionnaire-based guesses (hypotheses) about the possible connections between foods and diseases. This approach has been widely criticized as scientifically invalid [see here(1) and here(2)], yet continues to be used by influential researchers at prestigious institutions. Even if you think epidemiological methods are sound, at best they can only generate hypotheses that then need to be tested in clinical trials. Instead, these hypotheses are often prematurely trumpeted to the public as implicit fact in the form of media headlines, dietary guidelines, and well-placed commission reports like this one. Tragically, more than 80%(3) of these guesses are later proved wrong in clinical trials. With a failure rate this high, nutrition epidemiologists would be better off flipping a coin to decide which foods cause human disease. (1) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2018.00105/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2018.00105... (2) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2698337 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2698337 (3) https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2011.00506.x https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-... Ref: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/201901/eat-lancets-plant-based-planet-10-things-you-need-know https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/20190...

markstos 8y ago

Recent Harvard research found that we need to replace beef and dairy to avoid climate catastrophe. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2018.1528965?af=R& https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2018.1... Harvard's finding is consistent with the drawdown.org research that found plant-rich diets are a top solution to climate change. (4th of 80). https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank

arisAlexis 8y ago

This article is written in a very biased unscientific way and I wonder why it got so many upvotes. I get that people like meat here but.

markstos 8y ago
What's one example where it is unscientific?