10 Reasons Why You Should Eat Less Meat:

[Anita18]

I'm the same way. It balances the meal for me, which I don't think a lot of people understand. Your body needs all the stuff that people call "bad", such as fat and carbs. It's just the type of fat and carbs that you put in your body that causes people to pack on the pounds. I know you probably understand this, Bamf, but a lot of people don't.

I will say, a lot of people in my cell bio class went when the professor said there were health-crazy parents who put their babies on a low-fat diet and caused brain damage.

Your brain cells (and really, all of your cell membranes) are made up of lipids, ie fat. You do need some of that.

 

[Speedball]

EVERYTHING causes cancer. EVERYTHING. Singling out an item is pointless, however terrible for you it is anyway. And drinking a soda every now and then is not terrible for you, it's when you drink it like it's water, then it's bad for you.

 

[Manic4Love]

I'm sorry but I'll have to disagree with that statement that everything causes cancer. That's just foolish to believe.

 

[Anita18]

I came across this interesting blog I thought I'd like to share: http://onetouchnewlife.wordpress.com/ in light of the recent discovery...

I didn't know Coke could cause cancer

For eff's sake.

I work in cancer research. I am in lab right now, in fact, procrastinating on tissue culture of breast cancer cells.

Do you want to know what would prevent cancer, guaranteed, 100%?

Being dead. I am not kidding.

Cancer is caused by cells that got messed up when they divided. If your cells don't divide, they can't get cancerous.

But ya know, that's kind incompatible with being alive.

 

[Speedball]

I will say, a lot of people in my cell bio class went when the professor said there were health-crazy parents who put their babies on a low-fat diet and caused brain damage.

Your brain cells (and really, all of your cell membranes) are made up of lipids, ie fat. You do need some of that.

Why would you put a baby on a diet? That's just insane.

 

[Anita18]

I'm sorry but I'll have to disagree with that statement that everything causes cancer. That's just foolish to believe.

Foolish if you don't know a thing about cancer.

Here's the truth - to make a real difference in preventing cancer, you have to prevent things that cause cells to divide rapidly. More dividing = more chance of a cell messing up during division and becoming cancerous.

This is why smoking and drinking and sunburns are so bad for you. All of them damage cells, and new cells are needed (very quickly) to replace them. If you want to make a real difference in preventing cancer, stop doing those three things right now.

All the other diet stuff is really up in the air.

 

[Manic4Love]

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[The Original Bamfer]

Stupid stuff, basically. So don't do stupid stuff.

I could not read past this line. It is the ultimate peak; the ultimate climax of the post! Anything after would just pale in comparison.

 

[Speedball]

I'm sorry but I'll have to disagree with that statement that everything causes cancer. That's just foolish to believe.

I believe that everything in the universe is trying to kill you. Because it is. We're lucky to be alive. There have been many chances for us to be wiped out by a solar flare, enter a new ice age caused by volcanic eruptions, etc.

I've seen multiple articles about foods that say "this prevents cancer!", then a few months later "that thing we said prevents cancer, it doesn't, it causes it".

 

[Manic4Love]

But surely there's a pattern, a consistent compilation of evidence backing or supporting a position. Can't just be back and forth nonsense?

 

[Anita18]

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

I have a degree in biology and 6 years of working in this NIH- and NCI-accredited (and DOD-funded...don't ask me how we pulled that off, I have no idea) cancer research lab to back up my opinions. You?

At any rate, go ahead and be vegetarian if it lets you sleep at night. But just be aware that nothing guarantees 100% cancer prevention. Nothing.

Well, aside from being dead.

 

[Manic4Love]

We'll see. Don't be crying, doctor save me. How did I wind up with this malady?

 

[Anita18]

I could not read past this line. It is the ultimate peak; the ultimate climax of the post! Anything after would just pale in comparison.

I'm pretty sure a lot of crap could be avoided if people listened to that exact advice.

But surely there's a pattern, a consistent compilation of evidence backing or supporting a position. Can't just be back and forth nonsense?

But see, the evidence is only as good as the methods used to find the evidence. That's always how it's worked in science. There are limitations.

To do proper studies of human populations, to the rigor that we do them here in a microbiology lab, we'd have to separate people very specifically by race, feed them to exact specifications (people have notoriously bad recall of what they've eaten), have them exercise exactly the same amount, let them have exactly the same amount of sun, etc etc etc.

You see how impossible that is to control, at least ethically? We have a hard-enough time coming up with controls for CELLS ON A PLATE. (Sometimes the proper control ends up killing the cells, and obviously we can't use that as evidence for anything...) The yeast people laugh at our loose controls, while we laugh at the population scientists.

 

[Manic4Love]

You should read the China Study.

 

[Anita18]

You should read the China Study.

I AM Chinese and in my circles, if you eschew pork, you are officially not Chinese.

I actually don't know any Chinese people who are vegetarian. Especially vegan. That's just impossible to shop for in an Asian grocery store. Once I tried shopping there for a vegan friend and asked a lady for vegan dumplings. She was like, "No egg? No pork? Don't you want it to taste good?"

 

[The Original Bamfer]

Haha, when I was in high school, I had a very good Chinese friend. After graduating, she had two get-togethers and it was stocked with endless amounts of amazing food made by her mother. One item were these heavenly, teriyaki, pork skewer things. Best pork I've ever had. Everything else her mother made was stuffed with meat, too. Her parents literally came to America from the homeland, so they knew legit cuisine. Her eggrolls were to die for... they was very small and had an amazing beef filling. Best Chinese food I've ever had. However, I don't think her famous cheesecake, chocolate cupcakes were particularly exotic... BUT THEY WERE AMAZING, TOO!

 

[Anita18]

Haha, when I was in high school, I had a very good Chinese friend. After graduating, she had two get-togethers and it was stocked with endless amounts of amazing food made by her mother. One item were these heavenly, teriyaki, pork skewer things. Best pork I've ever had. Everything else her mother made was stuffed with meat, too. Her parents literally came to America from the homeland, so they knew legit cuisine. Her eggrolls were to die for... they was very small and had an amazing beef filling. Best Chinese food I've ever had. However, I don't think her famous cheesecake, chocolate cupcakes were particularly exotic... BUT THEY WERE AMAZING, TOO!

Unfortunately my parents emigrated from Taiwan and were busy grad students, so I guess they never sat down to learn legit Chinese cuisine.

But broiled pork butt is good no matter how you make it. Soy sauce and vinegar makes everything better!

We didn't do meat for every dish though. Most of dinner WAS stir-fried vegetables, so my point about moderation still stands. And white jasmine rice, the only legit rice!

 

[The Original Bamfer]

The only thing I'll be moderating is this forum.

 

[Godzilla2000]

Because of the simian genetic path that we as humans have evolved from we are technically Omnivores, which means to be healthy a human being you need both vegetables and animal proteins in your diet. I do not support a diet that does not include some portions of meat products based upon that scientific fact alone. Even in the wild simians like Chimpanzees will prey on smaller animals, including other monkeys, for their animal proteins. They don't survive on plants and insects alone. Now I'm not condoning climbing up a tree to club a monkey to death and eat it raw like the Chimpanzees do, but I'm just saying that you should add a safe portion size of animal protein to your diet, lean animal protein like fish and chicken if you must.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

I'm sorry but I'll have to disagree with that statement that everything causes cancer. That's just foolish to believe.

Some things that are genuinely reported to cause cancer:

Facebook
Wine
Common Cold
Deoderant
French Fries/ chips
Oral sex
Vitamin E
Sausages and burgers
Soup
Hair dye
Mouthwash
Sunscreen/cream
Chips/crisps
X-Rays
Talcum powder
Moisturisers
Phones
Red meat
Tooth whitener
Chocolate and bagged snacks
Age
Asprin
Asbestos
Baby bottles
Being black
Buuble bath
Candle-lit dinner
Childlessness
Chinese medicine
Eggs
Dogs
False nails
Internet
Menstruation
Older fathers
Pastry
Peanut Butter
Rice
Sex
Shaving
Metal
Milk
Space travel
Turning on the lights to go to the toilets at night
The Iraq war.

 

[The Morningstar]

A meal is not a meal unless it has a big juicy piece of meat in it...

I couldn't imagine being a vegetarian, why would you do this to yourself? Humans are carnivores. It's like if a Lion refused to eat Gazelle and just grazed on the grass.

 

[Lunar_Wolf]

Meat....meat....MEAT!!!!!

 

[Colossal Spoons]

The idea of eating less meat is no less hilarious now, than when this thread was first made

 

[Erzengel]

I'm going to eat more meat today.

 

[Godzilla2000]

I had 75% of a hamburger for breakfast today. The other 25% went to one of my mom's dogs when it fell off my cheap, unstable foam plate onto the floor as I was getting up from the table.