Comment by cies | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cies | Hacker News Reader

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If you live in 1500 north europe and your diet in winter is mostly grain in the last months, then a bit of meat and dairy is very important for not getting nutrient deficient.

If you live in modern day north europe the typical meat and dairy you get is heavily polluted and often processed. You can get veggies, fruits, seeds, nuts, legumes, mushrooms all year round. You can be fully nutrient complete based on the and skip the toxins in meat and dairy (and i forgot fish, especially sea fish is usually very toxic with mercury nowadays).

The gold standard tool is cronometer.com; try to make a diet there with only plant/fungi source and you probably only lack some b12 (which we used to get from drinking untreated surface water).

Saying we need animal products is simply not backed up by science. You are commenting on a book that has shown that some of the healthiest+longlived groups of people on the planet are vegan or near-vegan (okinawa and the adventists in calif).

What you sprout is unfounded "meat is needed for a balanced diet" propaganda. The plant based diet is backed by lots of research.

While for some people a plant base diet might well be good if well constructed and supplemented this is not always true on a population level. The average person isn't drs Greger disciple and will not wake up early in the morning to be measuring his foods to be sure that his intakes are following the RDAs.

Combine that with the fact that nutrients from vegetables are not as easily accessible by our bodies, meaning that for some people with digestion problems it could cause dangerous deficiencies.

And last but not least, yes meat can be contaminated or polluted, so you should be very careful when choosing your cuts. But the same can be said about vegs and fruits I'm afraid:

"European citizens have been exposed to a dramatic rise in the frequency and intensity of residues of the most toxic pesticides on fruits and vegetables sold in the EU. This report and its primary conclusion contradict official claims that toxic pesticides use is declining and that food residue levels are under control. This report also exposes a complete failure by Member States and the European Commission to implement EU Regulation and protect consumers. "

https://www.pan-europe.info/sites/pan-europe.info/files/publ...

> While for some people a plant base diet might well be good if well constructed and supplemented this is not always true on a population level.

The majority of meat eaters also have vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies, I don't think plant based diets are the issue here but general culture. Bread and salt have iodine added, but when B12 gets added to plant milks it's suddenly "supplemented". No, most diets have vitamins supplemented, and most western people are having sub optimal diets.

What meat eaters? If we are talking about health conscious people the ones eating meat will always have an advantage compared to people who eliminates food groups.

If you are comparing a health conscious vegan to the average fast food freak then yes, I can agree with you.

Still, the deficiencies caused by meat avoidance are usually more dangerous with worse consequences.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160316194551.h...

The Blue Zones book shows that people in all times where able to eat healthy. You are commenting on a post about this book.

Toxins are bad. But all research has shown that persistent toxins are much more common in animal products than in plant foods. In some German research they found glyphosate concentrations were lowest in vegetarians and vegans.

I'm not aware of those studies so I can't judge. What meat are you talking about? From which country? Was it cheap supermarket meat or locally sourced from a trusted butcher? I hope all of those questions are taken into consideration when judging which foods we should avoid.

But still I don't buy this whole meat avoidance stunt. Most studies show only small effects linked to meat avoidance which can be usually be well explained by the fact that vegetarians are usually health conscious people:

https://snipboard.io/Be32mu.jpg

https://tinyurl.com/57uv9raw

The problem with the evidence and research around the "plant based diet" is that there is an ulterior motive for most of the research (legitimate ethical concerns around meat eating) which taints a lot of the data.

For example, Dan Buettner (the author of Blue Zones) suggests that Okinawans eat a 98% plant based diet which is...I won't say "fraudulent" because I think it's possible it's an honest mistake but it's definitely not "correct" at all. It's based off of some sketchy anecdotal accounts of WWII starvation diets where the only ate potatoes. Western centenarian researchers and health gurus repeated that factoid a bunch and it became "the okinawan diet is basically a potato-heavy vegan diet" in some twisted game of telephone.

In actuality both modern and ancient Okinawans have the highest meat consumption in Japan. Lard is the go-to frying oil even for vegetable dishes. The largest proportion of calories come from animal products. The Okinawan diet is a high fat, high carb, moderately high meat diet whose main "secret" is conscious portion restriction (the local "eat until you are 80% full" mantra). They do eat plenty of fish too, just not as much as the mainlanders (the idea that the okinawan diet is low in fish is crazy because the okinawans have a super unique and proud local history of fishing and seafood foraging traditions).

You can get veggies, fruits, seeds, nuts, legumes, mushrooms all year round

Idk about production methods, but am forced to eat vegetables due to a medical condition. First concern, it is still not healthy after half a year and few consultants. Second, all highly available fruits and vegetables are so identical piece-wise that their semi-synthetic origin isn’t even a question to me, please correct me if I’m wrong. I think that access to really healthy/natural vegetables is as expensive and nontrivial as to healthy meat. I even know where I can get healthy meat in bulk (village economies), but have no idea where to start with plants.

> all highly available fruits and vegetables are so identical piece-wise that their semi-synthetic origin isn’t even a question to me

I dont undertstand this.

> but have no idea where to start with plants

I'm willing to help, please send me a message (hncies@altmails.com).

nature is variance. only commercial growing will make things taste the same.

not to mention whenever i eat a homegrown fruit or vegetable it tastes so much more vibrant than anything I’ve had at the supermarket.

for plant foods yes.

for meat it is different, usuallu people do not like to eat it without applying technology (heating (baking), salting, spicing with plant products, saucing with plant products) to it.

we do not actually like meat in its raw form, or when we have to manually strip it from animal bones.

I am sorry but your comment is ridiculous. You're commenting on article that represents part of "lots of research" and it just shows to be propagandistically skewed.

Correlation is not science. It has its place in science but it's pretty limited tool. Sardinian research shows the longest living people there are meat eaters.

There's even a solid reason to believe that most of your "heavy research" if based on fake science: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/blue-zones-diet-speculation...

Why did I say your comment is ridiculous, because it simply is for anyone who has basic understanding of macro and micro nutrients and their presence in food. Especially amino acids. Plant based diet may work only if you are an office worker with minimum activity and access to synthetic vitamins.

Majority of pro-vegan drives are ideologically charged or have business intent behind them.

Here is a different view backed by leading edge nutritional scientists: the “low carb down under” channel on YouTube.

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