5 ms·

Its interesting to hear anecdotal stories like these because they contradict the conventional wisdom nowadays that says you have to eat meat as protein every da

Its interesting to hear anecdotal stories like these because they contradict the conventional wisdom nowadays that says you have to eat meat as protein every day - clearly that wasn't the case in prior centuries.

LegitShady 7y ago
what was the life expectancy? what was the standard of living? trying to call back to 1930s belarus as an example to live from is crazy. It doesn't even logically follow that we should avoid meat because poor farmers in belarus didn't each much. Where's the logical argument?
- berdon 7y ago
  Is this just being down voted because of tone? The premise seems valid: just because you can "survive" off of a low-to-no protein diet doesn't mean it should be espoused.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    This post demonstrates the success of marketing "protein is meat". Such that when someone mentions reducing meat consumption, someone else thinks they are referring to a low-to-no protein diet.
    - notyourloops 7y ago
      Protein in terms of protein / calorie ratio of food tilts protein sources to meat and dairy. Easy way to compare foods and meals is to compare grams protein per 100cal of a given item. Things like meat, cottage cheese, yogurt, etc., top the charts. So if you want to maximize for protein consumption without putting on fat mass, you tend to look for meat, dairy, and things derived from them (whey protein isolate).
      - mercutio2 7y ago
        I think you may be missing the point. The controversy is about whether humans need gargantuan amounts of protein. Your post is assuming protein is very important, and thus it’s important to maximize protein per calorie. The post you’re responding to is discussing the fact that any time vegetarian or vegan diets come up, people launch into criticisms that are based on the assumption that humans needs lots more protein than occurs in vegetables.
        notyourloops 7y ago
        One issue I've seen when assessing some of the vegetarian or other plant-based diets proposed has been neglecting to account for protein. Most men at least don't enjoy the muscle loss associated with eating a low-protein diet, which is what the implementations I've seen often look like. That said, Americans are predominantly overweight and obese. A diet high in protein but low enough in total overall energetic content is an excellent recipe, when paired with weightlifting and a few days of cardiovascular activity, for improving musculature and eliminating fat. A scientific example demonstrating this point, entitled "Higher compared with lower dietary protein during an energy deficit combined with intense exercise promotes greater lean mass gain and fat mass loss: a randomized trial": https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/103/3/738/4564609 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/103/3/738/4564609
    - berdon 7y ago
      That is true. But people rarely develop allergies to meat based protein. The same cannot be said for plant based proteins.
  - LegitShady 7y ago
    I find posts about vegan/vegetarian lifestyles to heavily vote in lockstep. People don't like it when someone points out that something that seems to confirm their bias actually contains no logical argument. Tone is something you read into things, as much as is written into them. If someone is responding because of a perceived tone, it would be wise of them to consider if they're being as aggressive as they accuse the other side of being. Also, I dont mind being downvoted, I just wish someone would provide a logical argument in response.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- corodra 7y ago
  You and it sucks you're being downvoted. You know that lifestyle where everyone was poor, sickly and died at a younger age, that's a totally better lifestyle! Here's some stuff they conveniently left out that my Polish grandparents told me. In that lifestyle you may eat the clean meats on special occasions, but you eat the less desirable parts on a regular basis. Mostly in soups and stews because it stretches the food for longer. You save the bones and make soups out of them. Oh and you ate a lot of fat. Like smearing pig fat on bread. Technically pork was the cheapest meat. Only one purpose animal. Hens give eggs and fertilizer. Cows give milk, fertilizer and pull carts/plows. Kill them only when they're useless. Plus you may get meat from a butcher on special occasions. People hunted a lot back then. Rabbit, deer, etc. So, they would supplement game for livestock. Because game meat is not considered desirable by civilized society. Oh and fish. In eastern Europe, fish. Like always. It's cheap as shit and plentiful. It's also not considered meat because of Lent. Which is stupid. Fish is meat. Grow up. That's why people say they don't eat meat, but still eat fish. It's a catholic concept. The idea that the old world ate less meat is misleading. They ate less prized meats. Today we consider top round off a cow as a cheap cut. That use to be a Christmas roast for many poor families. Vegan diets are being proved by lots of studies at being pretty shitty for you. Even when I did it with my then girlfriend for a year. My bloodwork went to total shit and I always felt like crap. This whole article and crap is just a bunch of power hungry assholes in the UN appeasing to childish hippies who never picked up a book outside the metaphysical section.
  - nkozyra 7y ago
    > Vegan diets are being proved by lots of studies at being pretty shitty for you. Citations needed.
  - mffnbs 7y ago
    You went and did a whole thing there, eh?
  - ashelmire 7y ago
    > Vegan diets are being proved by lots of studies at being pretty shitty for you. As far as I can tell, this is completely false. Vegan diets do a lot of things well: reduce salt, saturated fat, and cholesterol intake, for example. Vegetarian / vegan diets improve cholesterol, blood sugar levels, and other things. Here's some citations of studies and papers that demonstrate vegan diets are better for you: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/ Several more listed at https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-diet-studies#section1 https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-diet-studies#sect... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26508743 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26508743 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25684089 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25684089 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23695207 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23695207 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16164885 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16164885 The consensus of scientific evidence seems pretty clearly in favor of plant-based diets. The evidence is as clear as the world being round or climate change being real.
galangalalgol 7y ago
When my grandmother was dying in the hospital we sat and talked. I aske what their meals had been like back in the 20s. Every part of every dish has animal protein or fat in it. The turnips were seared un lard, the turnip greens had bacon in them. The biscuit was made with lard too, and yes there was always some pork chicken or beef on the plate. Roots and leaves are healthy and should be most of the volume of our food, but grass fed animal fat is great for getting the remaining calories and animal protein absorbs so much better than pea or rice.
PeterisP 7y ago
In this traditional rural diet "extra protein" (in addition from what protein you get from potatoes and grains and legumes) is mainly supplied by dairy and eggs. However, slaughtering a pig or two once a year in the autumn also doesn't imply eating pork once a year, for a single family a single pig provides a quite large amount of various cured/smoked/dried meat products that are consumed over the winter, so you still have some meat products (not in large quantities though) on most days.
ivanhoe 7y ago
Not for poor people, those better situated would eat it more often. More importantly, people were not eating just steaks, but all parts of animals, so (in case of my grandparents in Yugoslavia) they'd eat a chicken or pork on Sundays and holidays, but on other days they'd perhaps have a cooked meat and bone marrow from a soup, or fried liver, or stew made from Sunday's leftovers. Also eggs, milk, cheese and other dairy products, that were affordable to everyone.

LegitShady 7y ago

what was the life expectancy? what was the standard of living? trying to call back to 1930s belarus as an example to live from is crazy. It doesn't even logically follow that we should avoid meat because poor farmers in belarus didn't each much. Where's the logical argument?

berdon 7y ago
Is this just being down voted because of tone? The premise seems valid: just because you can "survive" off of a low-to-no protein diet doesn't mean it should be espoused.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  This post demonstrates the success of marketing "protein is meat". Such that when someone mentions reducing meat consumption, someone else thinks they are referring to a low-to-no protein diet.
  - notyourloops 7y ago
    Protein in terms of protein / calorie ratio of food tilts protein sources to meat and dairy. Easy way to compare foods and meals is to compare grams protein per 100cal of a given item. Things like meat, cottage cheese, yogurt, etc., top the charts. So if you want to maximize for protein consumption without putting on fat mass, you tend to look for meat, dairy, and things derived from them (whey protein isolate).
    - mercutio2 7y ago
      I think you may be missing the point. The controversy is about whether humans need gargantuan amounts of protein. Your post is assuming protein is very important, and thus it’s important to maximize protein per calorie. The post you’re responding to is discussing the fact that any time vegetarian or vegan diets come up, people launch into criticisms that are based on the assumption that humans needs lots more protein than occurs in vegetables.
      - notyourloops 7y ago
        One issue I've seen when assessing some of the vegetarian or other plant-based diets proposed has been neglecting to account for protein. Most men at least don't enjoy the muscle loss associated with eating a low-protein diet, which is what the implementations I've seen often look like. That said, Americans are predominantly overweight and obese. A diet high in protein but low enough in total overall energetic content is an excellent recipe, when paired with weightlifting and a few days of cardiovascular activity, for improving musculature and eliminating fat. A scientific example demonstrating this point, entitled "Higher compared with lower dietary protein during an energy deficit combined with intense exercise promotes greater lean mass gain and fat mass loss: a randomized trial": https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/103/3/738/4564609 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/103/3/738/4564609
  - berdon 7y ago
    That is true. But people rarely develop allergies to meat based protein. The same cannot be said for plant based proteins.
- LegitShady 7y ago
  I find posts about vegan/vegetarian lifestyles to heavily vote in lockstep. People don't like it when someone points out that something that seems to confirm their bias actually contains no logical argument. Tone is something you read into things, as much as is written into them. If someone is responding because of a perceived tone, it would be wise of them to consider if they're being as aggressive as they accuse the other side of being. Also, I dont mind being downvoted, I just wish someone would provide a logical argument in response.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
corodra 7y ago
You and it sucks you're being downvoted. You know that lifestyle where everyone was poor, sickly and died at a younger age, that's a totally better lifestyle! Here's some stuff they conveniently left out that my Polish grandparents told me. In that lifestyle you may eat the clean meats on special occasions, but you eat the less desirable parts on a regular basis. Mostly in soups and stews because it stretches the food for longer. You save the bones and make soups out of them. Oh and you ate a lot of fat. Like smearing pig fat on bread. Technically pork was the cheapest meat. Only one purpose animal. Hens give eggs and fertilizer. Cows give milk, fertilizer and pull carts/plows. Kill them only when they're useless. Plus you may get meat from a butcher on special occasions. People hunted a lot back then. Rabbit, deer, etc. So, they would supplement game for livestock. Because game meat is not considered desirable by civilized society. Oh and fish. In eastern Europe, fish. Like always. It's cheap as shit and plentiful. It's also not considered meat because of Lent. Which is stupid. Fish is meat. Grow up. That's why people say they don't eat meat, but still eat fish. It's a catholic concept. The idea that the old world ate less meat is misleading. They ate less prized meats. Today we consider top round off a cow as a cheap cut. That use to be a Christmas roast for many poor families. Vegan diets are being proved by lots of studies at being pretty shitty for you. Even when I did it with my then girlfriend for a year. My bloodwork went to total shit and I always felt like crap. This whole article and crap is just a bunch of power hungry assholes in the UN appeasing to childish hippies who never picked up a book outside the metaphysical section.
- nkozyra 7y ago
  > Vegan diets are being proved by lots of studies at being pretty shitty for you. Citations needed.
- mffnbs 7y ago
  You went and did a whole thing there, eh?
- ashelmire 7y ago
  > Vegan diets are being proved by lots of studies at being pretty shitty for you. As far as I can tell, this is completely false. Vegan diets do a lot of things well: reduce salt, saturated fat, and cholesterol intake, for example. Vegetarian / vegan diets improve cholesterol, blood sugar levels, and other things. Here's some citations of studies and papers that demonstrate vegan diets are better for you: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/ Several more listed at https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-diet-studies#section1 https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-diet-studies#sect... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26508743 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26508743 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25684089 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25684089 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23695207 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23695207 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16164885 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16164885 The consensus of scientific evidence seems pretty clearly in favor of plant-based diets. The evidence is as clear as the world being round or climate change being real.

galangalalgol 7y ago

When my grandmother was dying in the hospital we sat and talked. I aske what their meals had been like back in the 20s. Every part of every dish has animal protein or fat in it. The turnips were seared un lard, the turnip greens had bacon in them. The biscuit was made with lard too, and yes there was always some pork chicken or beef on the plate. Roots and leaves are healthy and should be most of the volume of our food, but grass fed animal fat is great for getting the remaining calories and animal protein absorbs so much better than pea or rice.

PeterisP 7y ago

In this traditional rural diet "extra protein" (in addition from what protein you get from potatoes and grains and legumes) is mainly supplied by dairy and eggs. However, slaughtering a pig or two once a year in the autumn also doesn't imply eating pork once a year, for a single family a single pig provides a quite large amount of various cured/smoked/dried meat products that are consumed over the winter, so you still have some meat products (not in large quantities though) on most days.

ivanhoe 7y ago

Not for poor people, those better situated would eat it more often. More importantly, people were not eating just steaks, but all parts of animals, so (in case of my grandparents in Yugoslavia) they'd eat a chicken or pork on Sundays and holidays, but on other days they'd perhaps have a cooked meat and bone marrow from a soup, or fried liver, or stew made from Sunday's leftovers. Also eggs, milk, cheese and other dairy products, that were affordable to everyone.