Healthiest Diet Is:

[hightower]

As Oscar (from The Office) says, the problem with debating is we all get entrenched in our own views.

I'll disagree on the climate change part related to beef consumption. Mother nature wants animals and plants together. There was actually a life cycle analysis of green houses gases done on at white oak pastures. The same company also did one for the impossible burger. Turns out eating one grass fed regeneratively grown burger offsets the emissions (net negative) that it takes to produce an impossible burger (net positive).

There is already more than enough food produced to feed the world. Distribution and political challenges are the problem causing people to go hungry.

Sacred Cow is a good book detailing this discussion.

I agree with your other points.

I didnt say there’s not enough food. I said there’s not enough land to support all the animals we would need to raise in order for the rest of humanity to eat as much meat as we do. Especially if we do as Sacred Cow says “it’s not the cow, it’s the how”. I can tell you from current first hand experience with raising my own pigs that it takes an enormous amount of land to sustainably pasture raise meat for just a small family operation. Multiply that by billions of people and it proves my point. Plus there are much smarter people out there than me who have already shown this to be true. Sure you can raise meat to feed the billions via insane industrial practices as we do now, but it’s doing damage to the planet and has enormous risks to our health. All of which is glaringly obvious already. Remember raising meat in this way causes harm not just directly with all the waste production, water consumption, etc, but also indirectly via all the land it takes to grow crops for these animals to eat which is done with modern destructive farming practices that destroy soil and depend heavily on chemicals and industrial processes to produce, transport, etc.

Compare this to how much land it takes to provide enough food for your family when growing vegetables and fruit. You can easily feed yourself year round with just 1/4 acre of land with good intensive farming practices. I’m not saying we cannot have meat, I’m saying we cannot have so much of it. There’s no question that the way we consume meat today is harmful to the planet and ultimately to us.

[childay]

I didnt say there’s not enough food. I said there’s not enough land to support all the animals we would need to raise in order for the rest of humanity to eat as much meat as we do. Especially if we do as Sacred Cow says “it’s not the cow, it’s the how”. I can tell you from current first hand experience with raising my own pigs that it takes an enormous amount of land to sustainably pasture raise meat for just a small family operation. Multiply that by billions of people and it proves my point. Plus there are much smarter people out there than me who have already shown this to be true. Sure you can raise meat to feed the billions via insane industrial practices as we do now, but it’s doing damage to the planet and has enormous risks to our health. All of which is glaringly obvious already. Remember raising meat in this way causes harm not just directly with all the waste production, water consumption, etc, but also indirectly via all the land it takes to grow crops for these animals to eat which is done with modern destructive farming practices that destroy soil and depend heavily on chemicals and industrial processes to produce, transport, etc.

Compare this to how much land it takes to provide enough food for your family when growing vegetables and fruit. You can easily feed yourself year round with just 1/4 acre of land with good intensive farming practices. I’m not saying we cannot have meat, I’m saying we cannot have so much of it. There’s no question that the way we consume meat today is harmful to the planet and ultimately to us.

Or we could just make pig skyscrapers
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ure-pandemics-

[Doc Spouse]

I always try to remind people that it doesn't have to be all or nothing with vegetarianism or veganism.

I agree completely. The problem with this is that I'm an all or nothing kinda guy. :P From a self-discipline standpoint, I find it much easier to draw those personal hard lines and stick to them.

My biggest environmental issue with meat is the old "How much food/land/water does it take to raise that meat?" (Feed Conversion Ratio). Even the most ardent meat eater has to agree that raising meat animals for food is inefficient. That being said, humans are selfish by nature and that includes myself. I love meat, and it took a selfish reason (my health and not wanting to be on statins for the rest of my life) to make me give it up. I can't exactly take the moral high ground on the environmental impact of my vegetarianism, it's more of a happy secondary benefit.

[burritos]

Or we could just make pig skyscrapers
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ure-pandemics-

You still need the real estate to grow pig feed, which is usually corn and soy, which often requires nitrogen fertilizer inputs which comes from fossil fuels. Cows/steer when eating grass don't have that fossil fuel input requirement. But yes, you do need the land and I don't see feeding billions of people beef fed grass is viable in our lifetime.

[childay]

You still need the real estate to grow pig feed, which is usually corn and soy, which often requires nitrogen fertilizer inputs which comes from fossil fuels. Cows/steer when eating grass don't have that fossil fuel input requirement. But yes, you do need the land and I don't see feeding billions of people beef fed grass is viable in our lifetime.

I just happened upon that article this morning and thought it was somewhat horrifyingly interesting. Are you suggesting pigs are worse than cows in environmental terms overall? Also beef fed grass, not a big seller..

[burritos]

I just happened upon that article this morning and thought it was somewhat horrifyingly interesting. Are you suggesting pigs are worse than cows in environmental terms overall? Also beef fed grass, not a big seller..

I’m not sure anyone really knows. The romantic notion of farming grass fed cows is that you truly are farming sunshine. Supposedly you rotate cows from pasture to pasture eating grass that wasnt planted or fertilized or watered by man. Little to no fossil fuel inputs. Yes they fart methane, but that’s a zero net because that carbon is coming from plants that had extracted it from the atmosphere which is known as the carbon cycle. yea this requires land, but if left unfarmed, the soil actually improves and becomes a carbon sink.

With pork and chicken(the healthy white meats) you might have some small operations where they eat organic grubs, insects, organic wastes but in large scale operations most are fed corn and soy. The feed require fossil fuel inputs as fertilizer.

Also corn/soy fed meats bioconcentrates PUFAs. Specifically linoleic acid. This fatty acid is an essential FA but should make up 1-2% of your membranes. When you eat a lot of vegetable oils and corn fed meats, Your membrane PUFA concentration and go up to 20%+ of all your membrane concentration. This has been identified as a root cause of metabolic dysfunction, specifically insulin resistance. No one ever calculates the environmental cost or the carbon footprint that all the medical treatment and meds(not to mention morbidity and mortality)to ameliorate all this metabolic/medical damage. I am guessing it is huge.

[Kamban]

One thing I have found out about diets is the more it is a fad and alien to what you have been eating ( eg. Atkins diet ) the less likely you will stick to it for more than a few weeks. Sure it might sell books and be on TV talk shows but that is about it.

The other thing is how much does this new fancy diet resemble the normal diet you have grown up with. I have been eating an Asian Indian vegetarian diet for a very long time. I cannot suddenly give that up and go into a Mediterranean diet of fish and other seafood and nuts. I might go nuts on this diet.

What I do is to critically look at the diet I eat and see how I can modify it to make it more healthy. With the Indian food I have stopped using clarified butter ( ghee) and saturated vegetable oils. So we cook with olive or canola or sunflower oil. No Indian sweets made of sugar or ghee except once in a month or so. Use low fat milk instead of full fat ( skim milk is just water that is being sold for $2 per gallon). I have added salads and fruits to my diet and eating more portions of vegetables. Eating nuts in moderation.

But all this diet won't do much good unless I exercise. So regular brisk walks daily and cycling 2 days a week. And an aspirin a day.

[Anne]

One thing I have found out about diets is the more it is a fad and alien to what you have been eating ( eg. Atkins diet ) the less likely you will stick to it for more than a few weeks. Sure it might sell books and be on TV talk shows but that is about it.

The other thing is how much does this new fancy diet resemble the normal diet you have grown up with. I have been eating an Asian Indian vegetarian diet for a very long time. I cannot suddenly give that up and go into a Mediterranean diet of fish and other seafood and nuts. I might go nuts on this diet.

What I do is to critically look at the diet I eat and see how I can modify it to make it more healthy. With the Indian food I have stopped using clarified butter ( ghee) and saturated vegetable oils. So we cook with olive or canola or sunflower oil. No Indian sweets made of sugar or ghee except once in a month or so. Use low fat milk instead of full fat ( skim milk is just water that is being sold for $2 per gallon). I have added salads and fruits to my diet and eating more portions of vegetables. Eating nuts in moderation.

But all this diet won't do much good unless I exercise. So regular brisk walks daily and cycling 2 days a week. And an aspirin a day.

I can resist eating most junk food like chips etc but Indian snacks are like crack. The perfect combo of fried/savory/spicy/sweet. I just don’t buy them because I have no willpower against it and will eat it all.

[childay]

I can resist eating most junk food like chips etc but Indian snacks are like crack. The perfect combo of fried/savory/spicy/sweet. I just don’t buy them because I have no willpower against it and will eat it all.

I had to google it, they look right up my alley as well. There are definitely things my we know not to buy and keep in the house

[burritos]

I can resist eating most junk food like chips etc but Indian snacks are like crack. The perfect combo of fried/savory/spicy/sweet. I just don’t buy them because I have no willpower against it and will eat it all.

Me too. When we open a bag of xyz... it's the regular person vs 20 phd food chemists in a lab that are paid to make these things as addictive as heroin. And that's not an understatement. The economy of the food industry is over a trillion dollars. The delectable items one finds in today's 7-11 would absolutely astound kings, emperors, and pharaohs of times past. In that sense poor people can have their palate tantalized like royalty in the past. It's just giving them chronic disease, which one could argue is worth it. But then we as doctors have to deal with it.

[legobikes]

Me too. When we open a bag of xyz... it's the regular person vs 20 phd food chemists in a lab that are paid to make these things as addictive as heroin. And that's not an understatement. The economy of the food industry is over a trillion dollars. The delectable items one finds in today's 7-11 would absolutely astound kings, emperors, and pharaohs of times past. In that sense poor people can have their palate tantalized like royalty in the past. It's just giving them chronic disease, which one could argue is worth it. But then we as doctors have to deal with it.

Dude this is nonsense. They are not delectable, it's trash food, and no kings or emperors of the past would be astonished specifically at the taste, even of Cheetos with it's engineered 'vanishing caloric density'. You know how I know that? Because even in places where this kind of junk food is only now making inroads, it is not the adults who become enamored, it is the kids. Adults who are by no stretch wealthy or regularly eating the most tender morsels and cuts of meat do not suddenly lose their minds over the taste of Doritos or 7/11 donuts. You might think this if, as previously discussed in another thread on this site, your sense of what constitutes a cuisine is so narrow and shallow that what the supermarkets have to offer far exceed what you are able to prepare, but I assure you that in any traditional society this is not the case. There is a saying, often echoed among homemakers in my culture, that closely follows the English saying 'the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.' This is more an incitement for womenfolk to learn the art of cuisine, and from what I have seen, in most households in all cultures, the people of the household are satisfied both by the depth and variety of what is conjured up in the kitchen. These cultures already have snacks made at home or sold on the streetside that surpass anything made in factories. I would much rather eat any of a variety of streetside snacks from the Indian subcontinent than anything contained within a 7/11. And this is for regular citizens, so how much more would it be true of 'emperors and pharaohs'?

The infiltration of the rest of the world with McDonalds and Hersheys bars (fake chocolate) is on the strength of economics and the slow, disruptive creation of wants and empty aspirationalism. The product is not particularly important, only that it signifies the scratch that you must first create an itch for. No manufactured food in the world surpasses real cuisine from a traditional home.

[burritos]

Dude this is nonsense. They are not delectable, it's trash food, and no kings or emperors of the past would be astonished specifically at the taste, even of Cheetos with it's engineered 'vanishing caloric density'. You know how I know that? Because even in places where this kind of junk food is only now making inroads, it is not the adults who become enamored, it is the kids. Adults who are by no stretch wealthy or regularly eating the most tender morsels and cuts of meat do not suddenly lose their minds over the taste of Doritos or 7/11 donuts. You might think this if, as previously discussed in another thread on this site, your sense of what constitutes a cuisine is so narrow and shallow that what the supermarkets have to offer far exceed what you are able to prepare, but I assure you that in any traditional society this is not the case. There is a saying, often echoed among homemakers in my culture, that closely follows the English saying 'the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.' This is more an incitement for womenfolk to learn the art of cuisine, and from what I have seen, in most households in all cultures, the people of the household are satisfied both by the depth and variety of what is conjured up in the kitchen. These cultures already have snacks made at home or sold on the streetside that surpass anything made in factories. I would much rather eat any of a variety of streetside snacks from the Indian subcontinent than anything contained within a 7/11. And this is for regular citizens, so how much more would it be true of 'emperors and pharaohs'?

The infiltration of the rest of the world with McDonalds and Hersheys bars (fake chocolate) is on the strength of economics and the slow, disruptive creation of wants and empty aspirationalism. The product is not particularly important, only that it signifies the scratch that you must first create an itch for. No manufactured food in the world surpasses real cuisine from a traditional home.

You're right. I'm wrong. Stupid stuff just spills out of my head at times.

[wfpbFI]

This is a little old now but has nice map of how much of Earth's land would a given country's diet need to feed the whole earth.

https://ourworldindata.org/agricultu...y-global-diets

[Tyche]

I agree it's a much steeper climb if you grow up on a highly processed diet. I was raised in a home where iceberg lettuce was some of the healthiest food in the house. Not surprisingly I've always struggled with weight and some days the most delicious meal I can imagine are the 89 cent soft tacos from Taco Bell. It's taken the better part of a decade to lose my taste for sweets, and left unchecked I will always go for a high fat, high carb meal. What's interesting about fasting, which might not be true for everyone, is it's uncovered that the more I eat the more I want to eat. The less I eat the less I want to eat. Yesterday I broke fast at 2pm, had my beloved kimchi chigae and some salt and vinegar potato chips (they pair well?) and probably won't break fast again until this afternoon. I got home around 9:30 last night and thought, how am I not hungry?

I've mentioned him several times on this forum but Mike Israetel and Renaissance Periodization have totally reframed my concept of weight. In conjunction with regular, heavy, compound movements I can't emphasize enough how freeing it has been to simply make the distinction that when most people say they want to lose weight, what they really mean is they want to lose fat, and in many cases their ideal body image is way more muscular than our beloved Peloton will induce with its 4 minutes of 2lb bicep curls.

Not the highest quality video but here's a lecture he gave to medical students on nutrition and health. If I recall correctly his wife is a family medicine doctor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMCamdH-FxY

[burritos]

I agree it's a much steeper climb if you grow up on a highly processed diet. I was raised in a home where iceberg lettuce was some of the healthiest food in the house. Not surprisingly I've always struggled with weight and some days the most delicious meal I can imagine are the 89 cent soft tacos from Taco Bell. It's taken the better part of a decade to lose my taste for sweets, and left unchecked I will always go for a high fat, high carb meal. What's interesting about fasting, which might not be true for everyone, is it's uncovered that the more I eat the more I want to eat. The less I eat the less I want to eat. Yesterday I broke fast at 2pm, had my beloved kimchi chigae and some salt and vinegar potato chips (they pair well?) and probably won't break fast again until this afternoon. I got home around 9:30 last night and thought, how am I not hungry?

I've mentioned him several times on this forum but Mike Israetel and Renaissance Periodization have totally reframed my concept of weight. In conjunction with regular, heavy, compound movements I can't emphasize enough how freeing it has been to simply make the distinction that when most people say they want to lose weight, what they really mean is they want to lose fat, and in many cases their ideal body image is way more muscular than our beloved Peloton will induce with its 4 minutes of 2lb bicep curls.

Not the highest quality video but here's a lecture he gave to medical students on nutrition and health. If I recall correctly his wife is a family medicine doctor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMCamdH-FxY

Good stuff. Not sure if I totally agree with the saturated fat assessment. Still going to fast. Since, physical performance isn't a priority vs health, I'm not carb loading before exercising.