I guess I'll start with an emotional appeal.

Let’s start the discussion of ethical Veganism. The term I want to introduce first is Speciesism. Speciesism is the idea that some forms of life on Earth are more valuable and therefore better than others. Humans, of course, are the guiltiest of this.

We mass produce animals for slaughter, train them in circuses for our amusement, and skin them for car interior and fashionable shoes. We put them in light-less holdings, crammed with no room for comfort for the purpose of obtaining eggs. We artificial inseminate them, separate them from their young, and squeeze an organs meant only to be touched by their young for milk to dip our Oreos in and eat off a cone on a hot summer day.

I was guilty of the same thing for seventeen years. I still am, in some ways. My car has leather interior; some of the foods I eat were probably produced by the use of animal labor. Hell, my clothes and electronics were most likely produced by humans paid on unfair wages and in harsh and dangerous work conditions.

Yet we all choose to forget these facts. Why?

It’s because these facts are both disturbing and inconvenient.

Also, because these products are so predominant in our culture, it can be more than inconvenient to avoid them, especially if you’re on a low income salary and need to focus more time on feeding your kids and taking care of the bills than worrying about the contents and process of every item you pick off the shelf. I’m fortunate enough to have an easier time being Vegan. Some are not.

Some Vegans do like to pretend Veganism in easy. It’s not. It costs more money because most products are produced cheaply with animal products, including most soap and other household items that one would not assume had animal parts in it.

It’s also hard to undo years and years of animal product consumption. It takes a firm resolve and a fair amount of feeling upset to make the switch.

Education is always the first step to change.

Reading an eighteen-year-old’s blog does not count as education. However, I’m hoping this blog may stir you to do some more research besides the little clips and references I can offer from my limited view.

I have to get started on stats, but expect some actual references and solid ideology, starting in the roots of philosophy, next post. For now, hold onto the idea of Speciesism. That’s where I’ll be picking up in maybe a few days. Hopefully, that translates to tomorrow.

Bean’ out.

Veganism Drives It Home.

Here is Cordain’s Campbell's (wow, am I tired) final argument, a masterstroke against the Paleo diet argument.

    1. Non-genetic changes to the body can take place too. Just because our distant ancestors needed to hunt to survive does not mean we cannot get the proper nutrition and sustenance from a solely plant based diet.

   

    2.A holistic approach to nutrition study makes more sense than a reductionist approach because nutrition is about how foods work together to sustain us, not how each individual nutrient effects each individual aspect of the body.

    3. DIET BASED ON INSTINCT DOESN'T OPTIMIZE HEALTH. It optimizes pleasure. Bam.

   4. Both Cordain and Campbell have research supporting that milk (casein) has negative health effects, not positive, despite what corporate tells you. Soy ice cream tastes good. So does sorbet.

Read The China Study by T. Collin Campbell. I highly recommend it.

Protein debate series concluded. If you’re just tuning in now, start at the beginning and find out the protein based argument for Veganism.

Bean’ Vegan. 

What is the argument against Veganism?

As a vegan, I am not unbiased. I hold a strong belief that veganism is the only way to go, both for ethical and nutritional reasons. However, I do find it important to discuss the argument against Veganism because to understand the opponent is to overcome the opposition.

Continuing on with the series, Cordain’s argument against veganism is that there are no evolutionary reasons as to why humans should require a low, and not a high protein diet. Humans have been hunting as well as gathering for multiple centuries, so why would eating meat be bad?

Also, Cordain argues that Campbell’s statement that a diet of around ten percent protein intake is proper, as opposed to the fifteen to seventeen percent that Cordain supports, is based only on nitrogen management in the body, and not the protein that is required for the body to function properly in other ways.

A huge point that Campbell pursues in both The China Study and “The Protein Debate” is that consuming animal protein provides an ideal environment for tumor growth and mutation. He consistently demonstrates this correlation in both studies based on animal reactions as well as the cross examination of the American meat based diet to the rural Chinese plant based diet. The argument Cordain makes against this is that correlation does not necessarily equal causation. This is a potentially valid point.

Finally, Cordain exerts that the study Campbell completed with rats showing the effect casein (milk protein) has on tumor growth is not valid in this argument because Campbell did not specifically test meat based proteins such as actin and myosin.

What do you think? How will Campbell drive home is point that veganism is better in his rebuttal against Cordain?

Stay tuned. Bean out.

What does Campbell have to say?

Continuing from my last post, here are Professor Campbell’s main points about why vegan is better than paleo. Firstly, it is important to note that Campbell is the author of The China Study, the most comprehensive nutritional study ever conducted. Its formulation involved twenty years of research and supplication from other nutritional studies conducted before it. I highly recommend renting it from the library or purchasing it for your own collection. It’s a tough read, but it’s fantastic.

Moving on; here are some main points from Campbell’s argument. The first thing he asserts is, of course, that a vegan diet leads to better health. Campbell states that ingesting animal products such as meat and dairy have been shown to lead to steroid and growth hormone imbalances in the human body. As a matter of fact, both Campbell and Cordain agree that consuming dairy products in unnatural and unhealthy for humans. Thinking about it logically, the only animals to consume dairy after infancy are humans, and other animals certainly don’t drink the milk of other species. It’s kind of bizarre and disturbing, when you think about it.

Another point Campbell scores for the vegans relates to the actual method of experimentation and research each debater subscribes to. Cordain supports the reductionist approach, studying each nutrient individually, whereas Campbell takes a holistic approach, studying how all of the nutrients work and react together. Need I say more?

The final major point Campbell makes is that the consumption of animal protein has been positively correlated with higher rates of cancer such as breast, prostate, kidney, colon, and ovarian cancer. It has also been correlated in the same manner with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, and kidney stones.

Next time, I will post Cordain’s rebuttal to Campbell’s points.

Bean out.

What is the “Paleo” argument?

As I mentioned in my last post, Professor Loren Cordain is the man responsible for the nutritional theory known as “The Paleo Diet.” The Paleo Diet recommends that people eat like our evolutionary ancestors did: a non-processed balance of meats, vegetables, and few whole grains.

In “The Protein Debate,” Cordain reports benefits such as reduced gut size and metabolic activity, as well as an expansion in brain size for those who eat as he recommends. He also reports that the Paleo Diet allows for a better blood lipid profile, lower blood pressure, insulin sensitivity and glycemic control.

Another mainstay of Cordain’s argument is that meats have more of everything (different proteins and nutrients) packed into them whereas a vegetarian diet requires many different foods to provide the same nutritional content as one piece of meat.

Another interesting tidbit to consider about Cordain’s Paleo Diet is that Cordain supports the reductionist approach to studying diet. This means he supports the method of dietary study where the scientist studies one nutrient at a time as opposed to studying diet holistically and observing how everything works together an affects the human system.

So what is Campbell’s argument? And why do I subscribe to the vegan approach, even though Cordain makes some interesting points? Read on this week to find out more.

Bean out.

For your own research purposes, check out the full debate: http://www.catalystathletics.com/articles/downloads/proteinDebate.pdf

Analyzing “The Protein Debate”

Protein. Calcium. Evolution. These are buzz words of nutrition. One needs protein for energy and muscle growth. One needs calcium for bone and cartilage strength. Evolution dictates diet. In a way, all of these statements are true. But they are oversimplified statements, and they need to be studied and expounded upon to produce any beneficial and reliable knowledge. For that purpose I will turn the spotlight over to Professors Cordain and Campbell.

These two men have very different approaches to nutrition. Professor Loren Cordain champions the “paleo diet”: a way of eating that promotes the study evolutionary biology in order to deduce the proper nutrition requirements from the history told in the chemistry of fossils. Campbell subscribes to the vegan approach: an all-natural, all-plant diet that he has been studying and advocating for well over two decades.

“The Protein Debate” http://www.catalystathletics.com/articles/downloads/proteinDebate.pdf is a compilation of their arguments and rebuttals to each other’s views on diet and nutrition.

This marks the beginning of my week long blog report on the two very different and well supported arguments concerning diet and the reasons as to why you should subscribe to the vegan approach.

Bean’ healthy. 

Nature's Retribution: How Killing Animals Could Kill You.

So I just read a TED blog post about nutrition and its link to diabetes (http://blog.ted.com/2013/06/25/why-our-understanding-of-obesity-and-diabetes-may-be-wrong-a-qa-with-surgeon-peter-attia/) and posted a comment linking to my blog because although there was a faint mention of nutrition being a significant factor in the reduction of obesity and type 2 diabetes, there was no information as to where to research further nor exactly what a change in your diet and therefore nutrition could do for you.

The following information in this post I give full credit to The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted: The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Wright Loss and Long-Term Health (I must have a thing for wordy titles or something) by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II, MD. Forward by John Robbins, Author, Diet for a New America. I will cite page numbers, which hopefully will not vary from the hard copy version of this book because I have one of those nifty, virtual book devices.  

Keep in mind; I am taking these quotes out of the full context of the book to provide to you tidbits of information that may promote your interest in the concept of vegan nutrition. If you’re interested, get the book. Most libraries and bookstores carry it. My blog serves to promote discussion and interest in research; it is not a source of irrefutable factual information.

1.      “We spend far more, per capita, on health care than any other society in the world, and yet two thirds of Americans are overweight, and over 15 million Americans have diabetes, a number that has been rising rapidly” (pg.3).

Holy crap. That is terrifying information all on its own. Think about it, if we’re making such great leaps and bounds in medical science, why are we all so ill? How many people do you know with high cholesterol? High risk of heart disease? Cancer? Osteoporosis? Diabetes? How many of these people are on medications? How many of these medications are actually reversing the effects of the disease and not just alleviating the symptoms. If evidence was presented that a whole foods, plant based diet could reverse your disease, improve the quality of your life, or lengthen the life of your loved ones, would you make the switch?

2.      “What made this project especially remarkable is that, among the many associations that are relevant to diet and disease, so many pointed to the same finding: people who ate the most animal-based food got the most chronic disease. Even relatively small intakes of animal-based food were associated with adverse effects. People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease” (pg.6).

‘Nuff said folks. READ THE BOOK.

3.      “We initiated more studies using several different nutrients, including fish protein, dietary fats and the antioxidants known as carotenoids. A couple of excellent graduate students of mine, Tom O’Connor and Youping He, measured the ability of these nutrients to affect liver and pancreatic cancer. The results of these, and many other studies, showed nutrition to be far more important in controlling cancer promotion than the dose of the initiating carcinogen” (pg.66).  

The argument presented in The China Study is that although the carcinogen is the initiator of cancer within the body, it’s the nutritional environment within the body that promotes the development of cancer. Evidence is presented that a plant based, whole foods diet can prevent the development and spread of cancerous cells. Dude. It’s worth a try, right?

       4.      “It is extremely puzzling that these new government-sponsored 2002 FNB recommendations now say that we should be able to consume protein up to the extraordinary level of 35% as a means of minimizing chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease. This is an unbelievable travesty, considering the scientific evidence. The evidence presented in this book shows that increasing dietary protein within the range of about 10-20 % is associated with a broad array of health problems, especially when most of the protein is from animal sources” (pg. 308).

Some of the most common questions I face as a vegan are “what about protein?” or “how are you healthy?” or “don’t you need to eat animal products to survive due to the evolution of humans to eat animal products?”

I get plenty of protein. I am healthy because I attempt to vary my diet. No, you don’t need animal products to survive and be healthy. There’s plenty of evidence out in the world that shows that vegans are healthy, often healthier than omnivores, as long as we’re not junk-food vegans (which, honestly, I started out as before learning how to sauté vegetables and grill eggplant burgers. I ate two packs of Oreos in one month. That’s gross.)

Seriously, read this book. What I have provided are only the summary passages after a crap-ton of evidence on why a whole foods, plant based diet is the best way to go. There’s also plenty of evidence as to why we all think large amounts of protein are so important, how the only vitamin D you need is 15 minutes in the sun every three days (although I highly recommend getting outside a LOT more that than), and how big corporations are in cahoots with the government regarding nutrition education and guidelines for purely fiscal reasons, and not for the much more important reason of protecting the health of the American citizens.

Once again, read the book if you want the facts. Do not make nutritional decisions based off of this one blog post. I am not a professional. I am just a concerned college student.

Bean out.

Citation:

1.      Campbell, Thomas Colin, and Thomas M. Campbell. The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health. Dallas, TX: Benbella, 2006. Print.