Legumes, Rice and Protein

[Suvir Saran]

I have been told by Doctors and friends who practice nutrition and food studies that vegetarians that can balance a healthy diet by including proteins from dairy and poultry (eggs) and eat a good mix of rice and legumes have much better health in general and also lesser incidence of cancer through years of research... Can that be true?

It's because they become bored to death before the cancer gets them.

What about my grandmother in SF who seems to be fighting life pretty well and cooking up great varieties of vegetarian foods daily. Three meals a day. And she also has many non-Indian adopted kids who have flocked to Grandma for she cooks them fun vegetarian food whilst living in the Marina in SF and cooks with care and love of a grandma and seems to never bore herself or anyone else.

I think it depends on what vegetarians are eating..... What kind of vegetarian foods they have discovered. And what freedom they give themselves.

None of my friends... even the most carnivores amongst them, every have any trouble finding great food in my kitchen or those of my friends that are vegetarian. In fact I have friends that live to eat meat call me at least once or twice a month to come eat some of my cooking for they want to take a break from heavy meats but not from rich flavor. So, at the meals I prepare for them, they find great taste but much less fat. And a meal that is just as inspiring, interesting and fun.

[Suvir Saran]

The literature on risk factors for cancer is vast.  Many studies have reported beneficial effects of a range of diets, including diets high in green vegetables and fruit and low in fat.  There are some studies which are anomalous, and report a raised cancer risk for such diets.  Other studies suggest that your ethnicity rather than your diet (the two often going together) may be a factor.

It's a whole lot of epidemiology, and who knows?

Correct!

[Suvir Saran]

Joints don't have filters, Tommy, and they are often much larger than cigarettes, if your moving in the right circles.

Not saying you're wrong, just pointing out the complicashuns.

And what about those joints that are made using regular cigarettes? Where the tobacco from a Camel cig has been removed to replace with weed. Do people do that very often? Or is that not very common?

[g.johnson]

Tommy’s right. Performing a really good epidemiological study is next to impossible. The first problem is that relatively few of your study population are going to get cancer during the course of a study of reasonable duration (i.e., less that ten years). Second, the difference in cancer rates between the study and control populations is likely to be small – maybe 2% of vegetarians get cancer during the study and %2.05 of meat eaters. (I find it difficult to believe that there will be a huge difference.) These two factors mean that you have to use a huge study population which makes it difficult to control for cultural factors – you can’t be too picky since you need the bodies.

[Suvir Saran]

Tommy’s right. Performing a really good epidemiological study is next to impossible. The first problem is that relatively few of your study population are going to get cancer during the course of a study of reasonable duration (i.e., less that ten years). Second, the difference in cancer rates between the study and control populations is likely to be small – maybe 2% of vegetarians get cancer during the study and %2.05 of meat eaters. (I find it difficult to believe that there will be a huge difference.) These two factors mean that you have to use a huge study population which makes it difficult to control for cultural factors – you can’t be too picky since you need the bodies.

Agreed!

[Suvir Saran]

I think Wilfrid was correct in pointing out how diet and ethnicity can both play a very important role.

While we may not be able to do very accurate studies about all of this, there are many hundred millions with medical care available to them just in India with diets that are predominantly vegetarian and these people have not had the rate of cancer seen in other populations.

And mind you, the cancer doctors that I speak with are not talking of the Billion plus population of India, but just the 200-300 million that have medical expertise available to them.

It is understood by these doctors that the rate of cancer has been quite low in that group for they eat a vegetarian diet for the most part. Even those that eat meat eat a lot more vegetables than many vegans that have only been exposed to that diet recently. Also these people eat spices, herbs and seeds and stalks that are all considered in some ways to be perhaps somewhat responsible for these people having a much lower incidence of cancer.

Also it has been noticed that in the last decade and half as India has opened its market to several of the canned and pre-packaged goods, there has been a substantial increase in diseases that were not found as easily even just a decade ago.

Such studies have also been done around other communities where meat consumptions is only a very small part of daily diet. Vegetables and grains form the core of what one eats. The results again point to lesser incidence of cancer.

But again, research also shows that maybe it is not only the diet, but also genetics that could make such results possible.

Baffling is it not?

[Dave the Cook]

Even if you were to eliminate environmental and cultural factors, you could never control for emotion. Having observed my father, who recently concluded a nine-year battle with the big C, I am convinced that attitude influences health more far more than diet. I'll bet on a happy meat-eater over a cancer-obsessed vegetarian any day.

[Suvir Saran]

Even if you were to eliminate environmental and cultural factors, you could never control for emotion. Having observed my father, who recently concluded a nine-year battle with the big C, I am convinced that attitude influences health more far more than diet. I'll bet on a happy meat-eater over a cancer-obsessed vegetarian any day.

How true!

I think a healthy mind is always the best.

I cannot agree more about a cancer-obsessed vegatarian being at almost as much or even more risk.

That is the reason I never waste my time going to restaurants that are vegetarian. I find them boring and also fanatic.

I am happy eating what can be prepared for me at a restaurant that can serve any and all diets. I have no fanatic reason to be vegetarian.

In fact only last night I was craving Foie Gras.

[Dave the Cook]

In fact only last night I was craving Foie Gras.

I suspect there is nothing exceptional about this.

[Suvir Saran]

Wait a minute.  It's been a while since I took molecular biology, but it has always been my understanding that the body does not simply recycle the amino acids found in the polypeptides (proteins) that are ingested.  Rather, the body breaks down those amino acids and synthesizes the ones that it needs. 

It may be the case that certain elements needed to synthesize specific amnio acids, like the sulphur necesarry to produce cystene (which enables the formation of the disulfide bond) can only be found in animal products, but I'm fairly certain that vitamin supplements would be an adequate replacement.

As to this notion of ingesting rice with tofu, I'm confused.  TO the best of my knowledge, rice is a starch, or collection of sugars--with white rice being less complex than brown.  I fail to see how ingesting carbohydrates (consisting of carbon oxygen and hydrogen) that will be metabolized for energy is a prerequisite to cerain protein formation.  I suppose one could argue that protein or amino acid synthesis requires energy, but that energy can be found from protien or fat metabolisim. 

Perhaps members with a more thorough background in molecular biology, and or nutrition can help establish the link between these carbohydrates and amino acid synthesis, but as I far as I know, there is none.

Very impressed by all your scientific knowledge.

I hope you will share more with us on this and other such topics.

[John Whiting]

I've found the answer! After reading through the various conflicting studies, I have chosen to believe those scientists who recommend a diet that comes the closest to my personal preferences.

[Nick]

I am convinced that attitude influences health more far more than diet. I'll bet on a happy meat-eater over a cancer-obsessed vegetarian any day.

I'll second that.