Forks Over Knives

[AgentR11]

One other point: if we are going to look at our distant ancestors to determine what's best to eat (which I think is a mistake since our food choices are completely different today), we ultimately evolved from herbivores. There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't evolve back into herbivores...

Well, maybe in a few tens of thousands of years... maybe. But evolution is not the same as some ascetic changing their diet and spending most of their day meditating.

Evolution gave us a body equipped to eat meat and most importantly animal fat. Without consciously selecting a very specific diet, you will not achieve a zero calorie balance that excludes both animal and processed foods. A good sized, active male would have to eat a continuous stream of nuts; maybe some could stand it, but it would get old fast.

Could a slim, sedentary female make it work without losing weight? Probably. Maybe an office dwelling, small, commute by car male. Or an exceptionally dedicated larger human willing to eat enough nuts every day, forever... :-<

When someone says "vegan" to me, I tend to think of what I'd have to do to get 3500 Cal/Day. But I always end up with the same conclusion: I can't eat that much. (and 3500 Cal/Day is really not very high on the activity scale; a couple hours or so at 75% output will easily put many past that mark)

So.. Challenge to Vegans:
a) show me a 3500 Cal/Day plan that a human can manage to eat every day. forever.
b) show me a menu that can make up for a 5000 Cal day expenditure.

I don't really mean any offense by this, but Veganism is designed for office dwelling hominids who's typical trip to the gym involves walking around, talking, and getting their heart rate to 65% for 3 minutes, followed by a shower and three hours of TV. This is ok, and maybe that's where we'll evolve to, given enough singularity derived energy; but its not what we are now.

[babystrangeloop]

Dr. Berardi’s Vegan Experiment
cbathletics / Turbulence Training / October 11, 2010

Craig: Okay. Last question on that. How did you get up to 5,000 calories? Because it is quite difficult to eat that volume of food because when you eat those foods it suppresses your appetite naturally with all the fiber in it.

John: Absolutely. Coming from sort of a bodybuilding background and having eaten as much as 7,000 or 8,000 calories in the past, 5,000 calories isn’t that big of a deal for me. So, it wasn’t actually that difficult really.

For the first little bit of my plan, it felt great because I was just eating 5,000 calories, and I felt full and I felt like I was eating a lot of great food. By the end though, with all the bloating and stuff it definitely became a problem and it was definitely something I wouldn’t have stuck with. I would have made some serious changes the next time through.

I just ate about six times a day. I had what three meals and three snacks, and three of my snacks were really nutrient dense. I would [make a] mixture of things like oats, ground up flax seeds, oat bran, wheat bran, and stuff like that [in] a bowl, and I would put some dried fruits, maybe some mixed nuts, some vegan protein powder and add almond milk or something like that and just mix it all together in this big calorie dense gruel.

So, each one of those meals of nuts, grains and dried fruits was about 1,000 calories, so those was 3,000 calories right there from just my snacks. Then the other three meals were something like 700 calories each. So it was pretty easy to get 5,000.

Hmm, six meals a day sounds easy if your career is based on eating and working out.

[BasilBoy]

I don't really mean any offense by this, but Veganism is designed for office dwelling hominids who's typical trip to the gym involves walking around, talking, and getting their heart rate to 65% for 3 minutes, followed by a shower and three hours of TV. This is ok, and maybe that's where we'll evolve to, given enough singularity derived energy; but its not what we are now.

The ignorance on this site is palpable.

Mac Danzig is a professional MMA fighter who is a vegan. There are plenty of athletes who are vegans and it really doesn't take much effort to find them. You are simply wrong...

[AgentR11]

Mac Danzig is a professional MMA fighter who is a vegan. There are plenty of athletes who are vegans and it really doesn't take much effort to find them. You are simply wrong...

In my post I already mentioned that exceptional individuals can (and do) make it work.

Are you unwilling to show a 3500 cal/day vegan diet that a normal person could tolerate continuously? I am no where near as spectacular as the individual you list; I have no where near his level of motivation, training, nor time for training. A normal, non-athlete, burning 3500 Cal/Day is not exceptional; you shouldn't require exceptional motivation to sustain a non exceptional level of activity.

Personally, I can do the nut thing for about 6 weeks. Then I'm done. Past that point, I'd rather starve and not move.

[Loki]

There are plenty of vegan and vegetarian folks who are not only healthy, but fit. Far healthier and fit than the vast majority of Big Mac-guzzling Americans.

What humans ate 50,000 years ago is irrelevant. Ironically I see both vegans and “paleolithic diet” advocates bring this up. We are not the humans of 50,000 years ago, our genetics are different (lactose tolerance being a prime example). Humans are clearly omnivores, we must eat plants, but we can also eat meat. We can live exclusively on plants, but we cannot live exclusively on meat. This is basic science, guys, the hostility some here have displayed is purely emotional.

I tried veganism for a little while, didn’t care for it, narrowed down my eating options to less than I like. But I was a pretty strict vegetarian for roughly 15 years. Did eat a lot of cheese, but very few eggs. Lacto-vegetarianism provides a perfectly adequate diet for any physical activity one would want to engage in. I’d post pics of my weightlifting days, but that would be vain.

I’ve been eating meat again for the last 2 years, the vast majority of it from cows, pigs, and chickens raised on farms I’ve worked on or by local people I personally know. Some weeks I eat a lot of meat, some weeks I don’t any at all. Also been eating a lot more eggs, maybe half sourced from local flocks (will hopefully have my own small flock soon). About half the cheese I eat comes from Daisy the cow in the next village over, I get a gallon or two a week and make my own cheese from it. I find this approach to be a morally acceptable alternative to veganism/vegetarianism. Hardcore vegans may disagree.

Ideological veganism is a lifestyle that most won’t be able to choose in a low-energy world, but neither will ideological carnivorism. Anti-vegetarian ideologues will be in for a rude awakening should the economy decline significantly. Meat is a luxury. Plan accordingly.

[BasilBoy]

Mac Danzig is a professional MMA fighter who is a vegan. There are plenty of athletes who are vegans and it really doesn't take much effort to find them. You are simply wrong...

In my post I already mentioned that exceptional individuals can (and do) make it work.

Are you unwilling to show a 3500 cal/day vegan diet that a normal person could tolerate continuously? I am no where near as spectacular as the individual you list; I have no where near his level of motivation, training, nor time for training. A normal, non-athlete, burning 3500 Cal/Day is not exceptional; you shouldn't require exceptional motivation to sustain a non exceptional level of activity.

Personally, I can do the nut thing for about 6 weeks. Then I'm done. Past that point, I'd rather starve and not move.

I sited one example who may be exceptional. There are plenty of other 'normal' athletic vegans. Those that are vegans tend to be more aware of health, so they are also going to tend toward staying active.

If you want or need 3500 calories, just eat whole wheat pasta with a tasty sauce. Sauteed, caramelized onions and whole grain dijon mustard works well with whole wheat pasta. There are a myriad of ways to get that many calories on a vegan diet. The answer to your question is readily available on the internet...

Once again, I am not telling or advocating anything. I am merely giving you information. You don't have to use it or accept it. You're not interested in trying to prevent degenerative disease. I just wish the rest of us didn't have to pick up the tab. In case you haven't noticed, America has the highest per capita health care costs. I wonder if diet has anything to do with it? Nah...

[AgentR11]

Have you ever tried to eat 3500 cal of pasta????????

Thats over 2 KG of food.

[AgentR11]

Once again, I am not telling or advocating anything. I am merely giving you information. You don't have to use it or accept it. You're not interested in trying to prevent degenerative disease. I just wish the rest of us didn't have to pick up the tab. In case you haven't noticed, America has the highest per capita health care costs. I wonder if diet has anything to do with it? Nah...

It certainly does have to do with diet *AND* exercise, together. Too many refined sugars, too many hours sitting around doing nothing active. Now, if one accepts low physical activity, with a thin or low muscle mass body frame, you can get by easily enough at 1500 Cal; which does fit a vegan diet perfectly; the volume of food is right, you can eat a wide variety of anything on the "approved" list, quite tasty, interesting, non-boring. OTOH, I burn 1500 Cal *OVER* baseline with a two hour bike ride; and my baseline, resting metabolism comes in at around 2700 Cal.

Now, people dedicated to the principle of a vegan diet *CAN* make those numbers, but when you're in the 3500+ range; you have to make a serious effort to cram calories in; usually nuts are the most convenient; with oil and oil seeds less palatable, but at least not the same ole peanut & cashew. The problem here is the monotony, as easy as adding a few scoops of peanut butter/pile of cashews to my diet was when I needed it; after a few weeks, I couldn't even look sideways at a nut without losing my appetite. This isn't a fictional problem; its very real, and even the sited Dr above makes note of it.

I just think its very disingenuous to assert an if you care about preventing degenerative disease you will vegan-ize without acknowledging the difficulty in subjects who are not trying to lose weight, and are currently very active.

The answer most end up going with, as far as I can tell, is that you make an exception for eggs/milk (ovo/lacto); which of course neuters the calorie problem completely; but by doing so, you're really just consuming most of the same proteins and fats that were in the meat to begin with. (not identical of course). So if the health problem is caused by consuming those proteins and fats, then permitting the ovo/lacto defeats the suggested health benefit.

That said, I will give you this, if a typical office worker / clerk in America were to shift to a Vegan diet, they would almost all end up vastly healthier. (Though my hunch is also that a bit of red meat, and a bit of oily fish during each month would be wise...)

[BasilBoy]

Have you ever tried to eat 3500 cal of pasta????????

Thats over 2 KG of food.

No, but I used to be able to eat a pound (dry) of regular pasta in one sitting (that's well over 2000 calories, depending on what's with it). There is plenty of information on the net on how to get calories on a vegan diet. Do I really need to include here?

[Sixstrings]

yer but how does it relate to PO
unless you make your own soy milk, tofu and tamari

...

Bread and beef dripping will become gold ,just like it did during the war.

Exactly.. if you look at vegan cookbooks, the ingredients are hard to find, expensive, imported, complicated. I doubt there will be soy milk and lentil burgers in the post-peak collapse.

There should be potatoes though. You can live off that.. but don't pass up a steak if you're lucky enough to have it.

[AgentR11]

Do I really need to include here?

I've given them here. The point isn't their existence; the point is that attempting such a diet restriction in concert with a high daily caloric requirement is very difficult to achieve and practice on an ongoing basis.

Given that you were able to eat a pound of dry pasta in a sitting, obviously you can handle the volume required. Great. Now try acknowledging that not all can accomplish such feats. 90g (~3oz) is about the limit of the amount of dry pasta I could manage, if I were REALLY REALLY hungry.

I really don't see what is so controversial or contentious about accepting that vegans generally eat between 1500 & 2500 cal / day; and that at those intake levels, the food volume is reasonably comfortable and typical for what average people like to eat, with a good deal of variety available.

[Sixstrings]

Getting back to basics here..

What is the point of veganism?

Why can't it be a lifestyle of just a little bit of meat. There's nothing wrong with eating some meat. What I don't get is the strictness of veganism, they won't even allow for a morsel of meat. And most perplexing, the ban on eggs and dairy. You can't even have a little bit.

What's the point? It must be an ascetic thing and not about heatlh, there's nothing unhealthy about at least one egg or a bit of apple pie now and then. Or is the issue that if you have even a tiny taste of bacon then you'd go off the wagon so you can't touch meat at all?

In general, there really is no bad food. The problem is *too much* food. If anyone thinks an apple pie or a hard boiled egg is intrinsically bad, like they can't even have a bite it's so bad, I'm sorry but that sounds like an eating disorder.

[AgentR11]

Exactly.. if you look at vegan cookbooks, the ingredients are hard to find, expensive, imported, complicated.

Its hard to sell a cookbook to a publisher if the ingredients and instructions are simple and common. Read the text, sub in locally produced equivalents. It'll work fine.

I doubt there will be soy milk and lentil burgers in the post-peak collapse.

They're just beans guys. Grow some... learn to squish them.

People have been making natto, tofu, and miso paste by hand for much longer than there's been electrical gadgets.

Soy Milk

[BasilBoy]

Do I really need to include here?

I've given them here. The point isn't their existence; the point is that attempting such a diet restriction in concert with a high daily caloric requirement is very difficult to achieve and practice on an ongoing basis.

Given that you were able to eat a pound of dry pasta in a sitting, obviously you can handle the volume required. Great. Now try acknowledging that not all can accomplish such feats. 90g (~3oz) is about the limit of the amount of dry pasta I could manage, if I were REALLY REALLY hungry.

I really don't see what is so controversial or contentious about accepting that vegans generally eat between 1500 & 2500 cal / day; and that at those intake levels, the food volume is reasonably comfortable and typical for what average people like to eat, with a good deal of variety available.

It's not controversial, it's irrelevant. There is data out there, good data, that shows correlation between animal-based protein and disease. You either accept the data or not. It matters not whether it's hard to consume 3500 calories of plant-based food or not. Smoking causes lung cancer but it's hard to quit. This really isn't that hard to follow...

[Narz]

Mac Danzig is a professional MMA fighter who is a vegan. There are plenty of athletes who are vegans and it really doesn't take much effort to find them. You are simply wrong...

In my post I already mentioned that exceptional individuals can (and do) make it work.

Are you unwilling to show a 3500 cal/day vegan diet that a normal person could tolerate continuously? I am no where near as spectacular as the individual you list; I have no where near his level of motivation, training, nor time for training. A normal, non-athlete, burning 3500 Cal/Day is not exceptional; you shouldn't require exceptional motivation to sustain a non exceptional level of activity.

Personally, I can do the nut thing for about 6 weeks. Then I'm done. Past that point, I'd rather starve and not move.

Unless you're an athlete you're probably not going to be burning 3500 Cal/day.

"vegan diet that a normal person could tolerate continuously" is pretty vague. There is as much variety as you're willing to find.

I'm not vegan now, I occasionally eat some salmon & use eggs in recipes & organic butter (but no milk). I don't miss beef or chicken at all. Going vegetarian is easy, dealing with a gluten intolerance, that's hard!

[Narz]

If a herbivore diet would have promoted longevity and survival of the species then hominids would have employed it.

Not necessarily. Evolution doesn't care about longevity, as long as you can reproduce. Meat is concentrated calories but it's not necessary anymore in our abundant age.

[AgentR11]

It matters not whether it's hard to consume 3500 calories of plant-based food or not. Smoking causes lung cancer but it's hard to quit. This really isn't that hard to follow...

Of course its not hard to follow; but it *DOES* matter that smoking is hard to quit, and it *DOES* matter that it is hard to consume 3500 Cal of plant based food. Basically what you are trying to suggest is that anything that is presented that is a challenge to the sustainability of a daily activity is irrelevant if the result of that activity is desirable. This flies directly in the face of everything we know about human behavior. If it were true, there would be no overweight people; there would be only a very few with diabetes (honestly broken pancreas), heart disease and emphysema would be extremely rare. But they are. Because the difficulty of a suggested good behavior *IS* relevant. I'd suggest to you, that not only is it relevant, but that it is the most critical component. Belief or not, accept or not; THOSE are irrelevant in the face of behavior challenge.

[PrestonSturges]

Have you ever tried to eat 3500 cal of pasta????????

Thats over 2 KG of food.

I was at a wedding dinner with a guy who was a semi-pro cyclist. This skinny guy slurped down a massive plate of pasta.

But most people doing heavy labor on a vegetarian diet would look like any third world peasant with an average height of maybe 5'4".

Heck up until the 1950s, popular novels like detective stories described "six feet tall" and "two hundred pound" men a giants, the way would describe someone 6'7" today.

Were people healthier when their growth was stunted by 6 or 8 inches?

[AgentR11]

Personally, I can do the nut thing for about 6 weeks. Then I'm done. Past that point, I'd rather starve and not move.

Unless you're an athlete you're probably not going to be burning 3500 Cal/day.

I'm eating at or near 3500 Cal / day, and I'm dropping a pound a week (for the last 8 months, yeah, I flirted with Ice Cream last year! lol) Anyway, as I approach my target weight, this has become an interesting subject for me; how to maintain current output, eat healthy, but also stop the weight loss. It doesn't matter at the moment that I'm burning 4k-5k Cal /day, since I still have about 5 more pounds of body fat to lose, but it will matter in about a month. Because not only will I be at or below my desired weight, it'll also be summer, with more miles of riding, at lower thermodynamic efficiency and an even greater caloric expenditure.

This is doubly relevant in the Peak Oil context, as substituting biking miles for driving miles is a reasonable adaptation; most especially for urban and town dwelling people. (I'm a small towny type, fwiw). That means using food calories instead of petroleum.

"vegan diet that a normal person could tolerate continuously" is pretty vague. There is as much variety as you're willing to find.

As I've noted, if you are fine on 1500-2500 Cal per day, Vegan is awesome; tons of variety, volume is tolerable.

I'm not vegan now, I occasionally eat some salmon & use eggs in recipes & organic butter (but no milk). I don't miss beef or chicken at all. Going vegetarian is easy, dealing with a gluten intolerance, that's hard!

This is the more typical, and REALISTIC answer. *BUTTER*. 7+Cal / g. Complete game changer... BUT not Vegan.

[BasilBoy]

...but it *DOES* matter that smoking is hard to quit...

It DOES not. We are talking about data, correlation, and causation. Is it good data or not?

...and it *DOES* matter that it is hard to consume 3500 Cal of plant based food

It DOES not. Also, I don't agree with your premise that it's any more difficult to eat 3500 on a vegan diet. For some, yes, OK...but again, irrelevant. Furthermore, most people don't need 3500 calories.

Basically what you are trying to suggest is that anything that is presented that is a challenge to the sustainability of a daily activity is irrelevant if the result of that activity is desirable.

No I am not. Any challenges to becoming a vegan have absolutely nothing to do with the data to which I have referenced. Also, you seem to miss the fact that there are millions of vegans and that it's not a challenge for many. You want to fixate the matter on the notion that there are some high-caloric athletes who have a hard time with a vegan diet.

This flies directly in the face of everything we know about human behavior. If it were true, there would be no overweight people; there would be only a very few with diabetes (honestly broken pancreas), heart disease and emphysema would be extremely rare. But they are. Because the difficulty of a suggested good behavior *IS* relevant. I'd suggest to you, that not only is it relevant, but that it is the most critical component. Belief or not, accept or not; THOSE are irrelevant in the face of behavior challenge.

You have crossed over into a very complex area, human behavior. Part of the reason many Americans eat what they eat is because the food industry knows how the mind and body works and they concoct food that is 'addictive', for lack of a better word. The best analogy is smoking tobacco. There is correlation and causation between smoking and lung cancer. It's very hard for many to quit. Such a fact doesn't change the fact that smoking causes cancer...

For what it's worth, I think the processed food, dairy, and Frankenmeat are the problem. I don't see as much of a problem with the natural meat (eg. wild fish), unless the quantity is high...

You may want to consider studying philosophy and logic, if you haven't already, so that you can build stronger arguments. I understand a bit what you are trying to say, but I really don't see the relevance. If you want to create another thread discussing human behavior and its role in our diet, I'd be happy to participate if I have anything to offer...