being veggie

chinbergs

vegan all the way - good on those who follow the same :T

Ben84

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Animal products are carcinogenic. It has been found that the proteins in animal products are able to turn on the processes of certain diseases and that not eating them can turn the processes off. This is how carcinogenic work on the body. A plant based diet is the best for trying to avoid poisoning your body. Alcohol is a poison I agree and so can damage the body rather easily. However animal products in general are the problem and you will find that most omnivourse consume a lot of their caloric intake by animal products. This makes animal products in general worse.

Cancer is a disease resulting from DNA damage that cells have been unable to repair correctly. There are sections of DNA that control cell division, and damage to these areas can lead to uncontrolled cell division which means the number of cells increase, causing a tumour.

The sources of this DNA damage are chemical, for example highly reactive particles such as those found in smoke fumes from wood or cigarettes. Or a sources of high energy, such as UV light.

Proteins are not carcinogenic. They are not highly reactive, so could not break DNA, and the proteins you eat will never meet your DNA to inflict any damage to it either. Proteins are very big molecules, they cannot enter cells.

Further still, all proteins (animal or plant origin) are made from the same few repeating molecules, and during digestion they are broken down in to these amino acids. Only the amino acids enter your body. In everday terms people tend to think of acids as corrosive liquids, but in this case an amino acid is a molecule that can be joined at both ends to another amino acid to form a chain. This chain is folded many times to produce a 3D structure that is a protein.

Amino acids from beef are identical to amino acids from soya beans - this is why you can eat a vegan diet and do not lack any nutrients.

The proportions of each amino acid type varies from food to food, but they are the same molecules no matter what the source. They will not behave differently in the body or do anything different based on where they came from.

The amino acids in animal proteins were in fact made by a plant, no mammals can make them. If a slug eats a cabbage, and a bird eats the slug, then another bird eats the bird, and this bird is eaten by a fox, the fox will in fact be in part made from the amino acids the cabbage made. Each animal that eats them will assemble the amino acids in to its own proteins, but the basic amino acid molecules themselves are identical and can be broken apart during digestion and assembled over and over again in to new proteins.

I also find it very unlikely that mammals would have evolved to produce molecules that are poisonous or carcinogenic to mammals, as they would in fact make themselves ill.

A_fiend_for_life

Nicely explained Ben.

I think the problem with meats or at least some types of meats is the use of preservatives and particularly saltpetre used in bacon, certain types of ham, and sausages. I am not certain on the academic research on it but it has certainly been linked to abdominal cancers though how strong that link is and whether there is additional evidence such as biochemical pathways or receptors implicated I don't know.

Another potential area is the way meat is produced. Intensively farmed animals have white fat where as organic / free range and particularly pasture fed meat tends to be more yellow in colour due to the presence of beta-carotenes from a healthier diet. The implication being it is a diet potentially poorer in anti-oxidants that provides a higher risk.

Fire_Fox

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Just for your information the writer of the book used to eat an omnivorous diet (note Volcano it's omnivorous diet not carnivorous) and even used to be a part of the farming industry. However the more information he found from his research the more he couldn't justify the eating of certain things. In other words science proved that a plant based diet is best for optimal health. No other study has ever been as vast as this or over the amount of years (it still continues!) that this one has. The amount of this they studied and the amount of people that took part is how they managed to prove all this with very little doubt.

A healthy omnivorous diet is plant-based, it simply isn't exclusively plant-based. Most authorities recommend a high proportion of wholegrains in the diet, and several governments are recommending as many as nine portions of fruit and veg a day. If you then adhere to the recommended caloric intake, your meat/ fish/ dairy intake will be modest.

I was brought up eating mostly home-grown fruit and veg (we had an allotment and half our garden given over), plus our own 'free range' eggs, meat from ex-laying hens and our own rabbits. I am now 36 with no fillings, never broken a bone and no physical illnesses ... I'm struggling to remember the last time I had a cold! My brother is 34, had his first two fillings only a couple of years ago, never broken a bone and no illnesses barring hay fever.

Thinking back I don't believe our chickens or rabbits were a waste of resources - they primarily ate our leftovers or scavenged from the garden, we did buy in a bale or two of straw for bedding for both and a small amount of food. All 'green' waste was composted - the inedible stuff from the garden and allotment, the bedding and excrement from the animals and the result was used to fertilise the fruit and veg.

We didn't breed our own chicks, so as you say the biggest waste was probably their male siblings. Regarding the 100g of egg link with diabetes and breast cancer, I'd be interested to learn whether there was any distinction made between battery and organic eggs. Growth hormone, antibiotics and any other unnatural substance that an intensively-farmed animal is overdosed with does tend to concentrate in the fatty tissue if the liver is overloaded.

A_fiend_for_life

Thought I'd post this here as various 'vores seem to be taking an interest in this thread.

Lord Stern and reducing meat consumption:

http://www.carboncommentary.com/2009/10/29/816#more-816

There's an interesting site at the bottom of the article that looks worth keeping an eye on:

http://www.climatefriendlyfood.org.uk/

Volcano

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

Thought I'd post this here as various 'vores seem to be taking an interest in this thread.

'vores? Don't forget the 'flexitarians' too!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8341002.stm

Fire_Fox

Volcano wrote: »

'vores? Don't forget the 'flexitarians' too!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8341002.stm

I'm confused by
"But the Food Standards Agency's recent Public Attitudes to Food Issues survey found just 3% of the population was strictly vegetarian, and 5% partly vegetarian."

A_fiend_for_life

Apologies for continuing to post meaty stuff on here but this is an interesting article and highlights the problems rather well I think. While it is predominantly American in focus the same problems apply in the UK.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31niman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=meat%20consumption&st=cse

More important, all eaters can lower their global warming contribution by following these simple rules: avoid processed foods and those from industrialized farms; reduce food waste; and buy local and in season.

The article is a bit slim on vegetarian and vegan stuff but the take home message still applies I think.

gibby

nice to see such a good veggie vegan post on MSE

thought I would share this -

ethical veggie vegan holiday from £70 per person this easter

http://www.vegne.co.uk/vegan-gathering/

we went last year & going again this year as it was so much fun
its run by the local veggie group in the NE who seem like a great group

G