Vegan landlord bans meat-eaters

[Laksa]

considering all the side effects of a purely vegetarian diet, i'll stick with omnivore myself. with the added caveat of not eating cultivated grain.

i mean if we really want to talk about natural v unnatural.

tryska, you're making a joke, yes?

[slkinsey]

considering all the side effects of a purely vegetarian diet, i'll stick with omnivore myself. with the added caveat of not eating cultivated grain.

i mean if we really want to talk about natural v unnatural.

Why not cultivated grain? Humans have been eating cultivated grain for something like 10,000 years, and their closely-related wild ancestors far longer than that. I think it's a mistake, also, to assume that cultivated grain is somehow "unnatural." The process through which wild grains became domesticated grains was entirely natural (e.g., mutated wheat stalks that didn't shatter were more likely to be collected by hunter-gatherers, etc.). Other crops transitioned from wild to domesticated in a similarly native fashion (e.g., melon seeds passing through the digestive tract and later sprouting plants in latrine sites). It's as natural as, well, evolution.

[tryska]

well no i wasn't joking.

from an anthropology standpoint, as you watch, for instance, corn domestication spread accross the globe, you see pitting from rheumatoid arthritis start showing up on skeletons. other grain-eating/growing areas have higher prevalance of other auto-immune disroders (rye is a big one - i can't remember whether it is MD or CF tho). the lectins in grains that make them that we have to cook the sh*t out of them before we can digest them properly, cause a lot of problems over the long-term to bodies that weren't really designed for day in day out grain-eating.

[Laksa]

well no i wasn't joking.

Ok. I didn't think you were joking at first, until I started considering the practical implications of not eating cultivated grain. How easy is it to find wild grain?

[tryska]

you just don't eat grains.

actually what i do is allow myself some everyonce in a while, but i try to stick with meats, veggies and fruits.

[Adam Balic]

well no i wasn't joking.

from an anthropology standpoint, as you watch, for instance, corn domestication spread accross the globe, you see pitting from rheumatoid arthritis start showing up on skeletons. other grain-eating/growing areas have higher prevalance of other auto-immune disroders (rye is a big one - i can't remember whether it is MD or CF tho). the lectins in grains that make them that we have to cook the sh*t out of them before we can digest them properly, cause a lot of problems over the long-term to bodies that weren't really designed for day in day out grain-eating.

Are these any particular type of lectins? "Lectin" is a term for different classes of proteins that bind carbohydrate moieties and they are in pretty much everything, although some types are more concentrated in certain plant types. Legumes are pretty much full of them for instance, so if not eating cultivated grain due to lectins, what about legumes?

[Hest88]

actually what i do is allow myself some everyonce in a while, but i try to stick with meats, veggies and fruits.

I'm wrestling with this myself right now. I've never been one to really crave grain products, so find that if I'm cooking for myself or my husband it's basically meat and veggies only. However, my doctor wants me to get a lot more fiber in my diet and the only thing that really helps is something like a bowl of oatmeal every morning, followed by lots of psyllium. My heaps of cooked veggies just don't cut it. I'd love to switch back to a near no-grain diet, but I don't know how.

Also, where are you getting your B vitamins from? I can't seem to find a better substitute for them other than grains. I've just taken supplements but I wonder what you do.

[tryska]

i use brewer's yeast flakes actually - they've got a full range of Bs plus a very good amino acid profile. that's actually the only supplement i take (well magnesium and zinc too). if all of our meats were grass fed, we wouldn't have this problem tho *lol*.

but yeah that's what i do - usually a bowl of oats with some berries in it in the morning. if i'm having a sweet tooth moment, then maybe some honey or maple syrup added.

Edited August 4, 2004 by tryska (log)

[Katherine]

you just don't eat grains.

Actually what i do is allow myself some everyonce in a while, but i try to stick with meats, veggies and fruits.

I gave up wheat after finding that it inflames my arthritis.

I went on an artisan bread bender, and my feet were hurting really badly. It got so I would call my boss in the next room to have her straighten out the network when it locked up. I happened to decide to low carb it for a few days, and next thing I knew I no longer was taking Advil.

I haven't challenged my diet to find out whether corn or rice have the same effect, but eventually I intend to.

Evolutionarily speaking, grains are a brand-new food to humans. We've only been eating them in any quantity for about 10,000 out of the million-and-a-half years we've been around.

Before agriculture, it would have been impossible to harvest sufficient quantities in one place. The varieties available before selective hybridization would have been smaller and harder to clean, and raw unprocessed grains are pretty much indigestible without the technology that brought storage and cooking capabilities to neolithic humans.

Many people are able to tolerate these foods, but many are not. If you compare paleolithic foods with newer neolithic foods, you would find that more people are allergic to or have intolerances to neolithic foods: wheat, dairy, soy, peanuts.

[tryska]

well no i wasn't joking.

from an anthropology standpoint, as you watch, for instance, corn domestication spread accross the globe, you see pitting from rheumatoid arthritis start showing up on skeletons.  other grain-eating/growing areas have higher prevalance of other auto-immune disroders (rye is a big one - i can't remember whether it is MD or CF tho).   the lectins in grains that make them that we have to cook the sh*t out of them before we can digest them properly, cause a lot of problems over the long-term to bodies that weren't really designed for day in day out grain-eating.

Are these any particular type of lectins? "Lectin" is a term for different classes of proteins that bind carbohydrate moieties and they are in pretty much everything, although some types are more concentrated in certain plant types. Legumes are pretty much full of them for instance, so if not eating cultivated grain due to lectins, what about legumes?

well each grain has it's own lectin - ie wheat's is wheat agglutinin? i think is the name of it. they haven't come up with very exciting names for them it seems.

and of course kidney's beans have another hemo-agglutinating factor or some such name. i don't eat legumes too much either.

i mean if you go back and look at our paleolithic ancestors diets - if they came across oats or wheat, it was a rare thing and they might have taken advantage of it, but it was seasonal, and it was by happenstance.

another thing that re-inforced this for me, in particular, is that recently i found that Indians are apparently practically genetically disposed to type 2 diabetes. (i don't know all the details - but i'm curious if it's morseo in the north or the south.) The North beign wheat-based, wheat lectin apparently mimics insulin, thereby messing with insulin receptors.

edit: wheat's offending lectin is Wheat Germ Agglutinin.

Edited August 4, 2004 by tryska (log)

[chile_peppa]

Michael Sosner says vegetarians make good tenants, saying they are sociable, healthier and prefer to live in a meat-free environment.  "There's a different energy in vegan and vegetarian places which is very peaceful and comforting." 

I think vegetarians and vegans are subject to the same human foibles as omnivores and carnivores. SOME do tend to be a bit self-righteous and self-centered about their dietary habits. I witnessed a very sad thing during a visit with a vegan acquaintance. She had arbitrarily and unilaterally decided to become a vegan and stop cooking non-vegan foods for her family. Her decision was not founded on any particular principle (health, ethics, whatever), but seemed rather another attempt in her search for something mysteriously missing in her life. Anyway, she had served me a rather depressing meal when her 12-year-old son turned up. After one look at the table, he went to the freezer, took out a lump of frozen ground beef, and stuffed it into the microwave oven for his dinner. To me, sharing a meal is part of sharing our human experience, and it saddened me to see an example of how food choices can divide people instead of bringing them together.

[Adam Balic]

well no i wasn't joking.

from an anthropology standpoint, as you watch, for instance, corn domestication spread accross the globe, you see pitting from rheumatoid arthritis start showing up on skeletons.  other grain-eating/growing areas have higher prevalance of other auto-immune disroders (rye is a big one - i can't remember whether it is MD or CF tho).   the lectins in grains that make them that we have to cook the sh*t out of them before we can digest them properly, cause a lot of problems over the long-term to bodies that weren't really designed for day in day out grain-eating.

Are these any particular type of lectins? "Lectin" is a term for different classes of proteins that bind carbohydrate moieties and they are in pretty much everything, although some types are more concentrated in certain plant types. Legumes are pretty much full of them for instance, so if not eating cultivated grain due to lectins, what about legumes?

well each grain has it's own lectin - ie wheat's is wheat agglutinin? i think is the name of it. they haven't come up with very exciting names for them it seems.

and of course kidney's beans have another hemo-agglutinating factor or some such name. i don't eat legumes too much either.

i mean if you go back and look at our paleolithic ancestors diets - if they came across oats or wheat, it was a rare thing and they might have taken advantage of it, but it was seasonal, and it was by happenstance.

another thing that re-inforced this for me, in particular, is that recently i found that Indians are apparently practically genetically disposed to type 2 diabetes. (i don't know all the details - but i'm curious if it's morseo in the north or the south.) The North beign wheat-based, wheat lectin apparently mimics insulin, thereby messing with insulin receptors.

Dunphy JL, Balic A, Barcham GJ, Horvath AJ, Nash AD, Meeusen EN.

Isolation and characterization of a novel inducible mammalian galectin.

J Biol Chem. 2000 Oct 13;275(41):32106-13.

That's me at No.2 place. The "gal" in "galectin", just means it is a galactose binding lectin. I am just curious as I have worked with them a little bit and I haven't heard of people avoiding them. I mean they really are in everything from snail mucus to sheep to beans. Some of them can be damaging to health, Ricin is a lectin and it is one of the most powerful toxins about. Some nut lectins are responsible for nut allergies etc, but I'm not sure about the paleolithic diet thing.

Our paleolithic ancestors wouldn't have come across "wheat" as we know it as it didn't exist. I'm thinking that they didn't live as long as us either and they were full of parasites. Some of the work I do is based around the idea that the recent increase in allergies etc, is due to the lack of worm parasites. If you want to avoid chronic bowel diease or allergies, you just need some worms, but this doens't mean that getting a dose of schistosomiasis is a good thing.

[tryska]

hee - i was going to give a warning about this pdf i ran across - but you should be able to understand it, Adam. it might give some insight:

http://www.direct-ms.org/articles/FoodProt...utoimmunity.pdf

[tryska]

your work sounds fascinating btw - but i would look at "agrarian" type diets as well for some clues on the increase in allergies and bowel disease.

[klc14]

To exaggerate wildly for a sec, Hitler was a meateater but so I believe was Albert Schweitzer who was one of the great humanitarians of his time.

Hitler was a vegetarian. Not sure about Schweitzer.

Wrong. Oft repeated, but a total fiction.

Why Hitler Was NOT A Vegetarian by Rynn Berry, author of Famous Vegetarians and Their Favorite Recipes and Food for The Gods .

This link is to a page on the PETA site. Barry quotes chef Dione Lucas (in her Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook), Richard Schwartz, who wrote Judaism and Vegetarianism, and Robert Payne, a biographer of Hitler.

Quoting, emphasis added:

n September, 1991, The New York Times published "Don’t Put Hitler Among the Vegetarians," [in which] the correspondent (Richard Schwartz, author of Judaism and Vegetarianism ) pointed out that Hitler would occasionally go on vegetarian binges to cure himself of excessive sweatiness and flatulence, but that his main diet was meat-centered. He also cited Robert Payne, Albert Speer, and other well-known Hitler biographers, who mentioned Hitler’s predilection for such nonvegetarian foods as Bavarian sausages, ham, liver, and game. Furthermore, it was argued, if Hitler had been a vegetarian, he would not have banned vegetarian organizations in Germany and the occupied countries; nor would he have failed to urge a meatless diet on the German people as a way of coping with Germany’s World War II food shortage.

Under the headline, "He Loved His Squab," another correspondent cited a passage from a cookbook that had been written by a European chef, Dione Lucas, who was an eyewitness to Hitler’s meat-eating. In her Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook (1964), Lucas, drawing on her experiences as a hotel chef in Hamburg during the 1930s, remembered being called upon quite often to prepare Hitler’s favorite dish, which was not a vegetarian one. "I do not mean to spoil your appetite for stuffed squab," she writes, "but you might be interested to know that it was a great favorite with Mr. Hitler, who dined at the hotel often. Let us not hold that against a fine recipe though."

[barry] decided to look up the specific passages in Payne’s biography of Hitler and Dione Lucas’ The Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook that cast doubt on Hitler’s vegetarianism. Sure enough, Robert Payne, whose biography of Hitler, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, has been called definitive, scotches the rumor that Hitler might have been a vegetarian. According to Payne, Hitler’s vegetarianism was a fiction made up by his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to give him the aura of a revolutionary ascetic, a Fascistic Gandhi, if you will. It is worth quoting from Payne’s biography directly:

"Hitler’s asceticism played an important part in the image he projected over Germany. According to the widely believed legend, he neither smoked nor drank, nor did he eat meat or have anything to do with women. Only the first was true. . . . His asceticism was fiction invented by Goebbels to emphasize his total dedication, his self-control, the distance that separated him from other men. By this outward show of asceticism, he could claim that he was dedicated to the service of his people.

"In fact, he was remarkably self-indulgent and possessed none of the instincts of the ascetic. . .Although Hitler had no fondness for meat except in the form of sausages, and never ate fish, he enjoyed caviar.

###

I went rather long on this but I wanted the facts to be here without having to open another page.

As to Schweitzer, I checked a website about Nobel Prize Winners for a biography of Schweitzer, and a site about famous Germans. No mention of vegetarianism, which is usually mentioned about famous people (such as G.B. Shaw or Gandhi, who, as mentioned upthread is often quoted as knowing of vegetarians who performed deeds far more heinous than any meat eater. ).

[Adam Balic]

Interesting paper (although a bit out of date ). I have not doubt that autoimmune diseases have increased in Western countries or countries that have taken up Western lifestyles. I think that diet most likely has in important role as well. But, I'm not sure at what level and what maybe true in one instance may not be so for another.

Celiac disease has increased quite a bit and certainly gliadin (on of proteins that make up gluten) is the trigger and it is quite possible that WGA causes gut inflammation, which leads to the gliadin crossing the epithelial barrier. But, Westen cultures have been eating wheat products for a relatively long period, in some cases actually more in the past then at present, so why the recent increase in Celiac disease? The same pattern is also true of other auto-immune diseases.

No, the cause isn't 'we eat wheat products', it is something more subtle then that. When I work it out I will let you know, until then please keep sending in your donations.

[cakewalk]

To exaggerate wildly for a sec, Hitler was a meateater but so I believe was Albert Schweitzer who was one of the great humanitarians of his time.

Hitler was a vegetarian. Not sure about Schweitzer.

Wrong. Oft repeated, but a total fiction.

Why Hitler Was NOT A Vegetarian

Whew. Well, that makes me feel a lot better about him.

[gingerly]

more to chew on here-hitler's table talk

Notice that all of Hitler's vegetarian remarks quoted throughout this webpage are from the 1940's.

[StudentChefEclipse]

So, I am perusing this thread, and the Google ads at the top of the screen offer: "Vegan Meat: get to know singles in your area..."

Which I find twisted and hysterical...

[tryska]

Interesting paper (although a bit out of date ). I have not doubt that autoimmune diseases have increased in Western countries or countries that have taken up Western lifestyles. I think that diet most likely has in important role as well. But, I'm not sure at what level and what maybe true in one instance may not be so for another.

Celiac disease has increased quite a bit and certainly gliadin (on of proteins that make up gluten) is the trigger and it is quite possible that WGA causes gut inflammation, which leads to the gliadin crossing the epithelial barrier. But, Westen cultures have been eating wheat products for a relatively long period, in some cases actually more in the past then at present, so why the recent increase in Celiac disease? The same pattern is also true of other auto-immune diseases.

No, the cause isn't 'we eat wheat products', it is something more subtle then that. When I work it out I will let you know, until then please keep sending in your donations.

yeah - that paper was 1999 right? and by all means keep up the good work with your research. that is an interesting question re: why the increase in celiac disease lately - i think still we eat a lot more wheat/corn now than we did in say 1900 because of the advent of processing food on a large scale, and Mr. Kellog et al.

interesting thing, on a purely empirical basis - my roommate when i first met her was lactose intolerant. but as we've been living together for the last year or so, she has starting getting very bloated nad uncomfortable it seemed no matter what she ate. i advised on cutting out gluten, and sure enough, that's bene the culprit. she has no health insurance, so there's no definitive diagnosis of what's going on, but it was interesting to see theory in practice. for me autoimmune disorders are of particular interest because i've got autoimmune thyroiditis.

[tryska]

as for hitler, he was mainly a methamphetaminarian. i doubt he had much of an appetite one way or the other.

[Katherine]

Interesting paper (although a bit out of date ). I have not doubt that autoimmune diseases have increased in Western countries or countries that have taken up Western lifestyles. I think that diet most likely has in important role as well. But, I'm not sure at what level and what maybe true in one instance may not be so for another.

Celiac disease has increased quite a bit and certainly gliadin (on of proteins that make up gluten) is the trigger and it is quite possible that WGA causes gut inflammation, which leads to the gliadin crossing the epithelial barrier. But, Westen cultures have been eating wheat products for a relatively long period, in some cases actually more in the past then at present, so why the recent increase in Celiac disease? The same  pattern is also true of other auto-immune diseases.

No, the cause isn't 'we eat wheat products', it is something more subtle then that. When I work it out I will let you know, until then please keep sending in your donations.

yeah - that paper was 1999 right? and by all means keep up the good work with your research. that is an interesting question re: why the increase in celiac disease lately - i think still we eat a lot more wheat/corn now than we did in say 1900 because of the advent of processing food on a large scale, and Mr. Kellog et al.

interesting thing, on a purely empirical basis - my roommate when i first met her was lactose intolerant. but as we've been living together for the last year or so, she has starting getting very bloated nad uncomfortable it seemed no matter what she ate. i advised on cutting out gluten, and sure enough, that's bene the culprit. she has no health insurance, so there's no definitive diagnosis of what's going on, but it was interesting to see theory in practice. for me autoimmune disorders are of particular interest because i've got autoimmune thyroiditis.

It worked for me, too.

There's way too much theorizing and not nearly enough real testing of basic principles. The standard American diet has never been tested, it's just considered ok by default. Yet if you give up something that bothers you, you're challenging the status quo, and threatening our way of life.

If not eating wheat makes my symptoms go away, it does. If the theoreticians figure out a mechanism for this, so they do. If they don't, it's not up to me to sacrifice my lifestyle to align to the current paradigm.

[tryska]

agreed. altho it makes for tough-going sometimes.

[stovetop]

I think we are missing the most important part of this discussion and that is environmental; where we live, the cultural, religious and sociological issues are tied close to environmental, such as if you are a Eskimo and it is January, try and find some veggies down at 7-11, I believe that would be hard, we are missing the most important point here. We eat foods that grow in the natural environment and have been manipulating food for our benefit since humankind has existed

I might be wrong but did not most humans live in the country and forage for their food and depending on which environment they lived that would dictate the types of food they ate, it would be normal to eat a fruit and nut diet and some fish if you lived in a tropical environment and close to the sea.

Italy is a great modern country to study different diets based on environmental situations. Italy has so many different types of food and diets, the reasons for theses diets are varied and one reason we have missed is financial, some people just can not afford to eat meat every day. In Italy the north eats different foods then in the south, the north is more meat (lamb) and cream, cheese and polenta.

The diet is based on season and what is available to the homemaker and also what the budget of the cook has. There are huge cultural influences from region to region, recipes passed down from generation to generation. They do not go to 7-11 and get there groceries, this to me is a bigger culprit then lets say eating meat.

The biggest misnomer is that vegetarians are helping the environment; I think they want to think this so they can cease to worry their heads off. First off I do not want to insult anybody who comes to vegetarianism naturally; religious and cultural values where vegetarianism can come hand in hand, I mean no wrong in this discussion where I have a problem is left wing veggies; wait a minute can there be right wing veggies????

In the Western world we are creating new religious dogma by replacing our traditional values of church with so called spirituality, hey if it feels good do it!!!..., but please remove yourself from the pulpit and do some more homework, open your eyes to the world, it is full of trickery and people who play on your fears and weaknesses; what seems to relive your mind from your quilt of killing animals, a life of vegetarianism, dig bellow the surface and you realize you are a marketers dream, a very easy target to sell too. Capers is such a store, they utilize a lifestyle and target audience and mold the fears of that market to take them any where they want, but again scratch below the surface and you see it is not as spiritual as you would want to believe, the new age movement is a multi million dollar industry and so is vegetarianism, it is a peg in the whole for companies to develop product and lifestyle so they can sell to you, you are a lamb waiting for slaughter, you are not that smart after all. Secondly how are you really saving the planet?

The one way which we can save the planet is to start waking up and question where food source are comes from, vegetables can cause just as much environmental damage as animals. Pesticides, chemicals and intense farming are what are destroying the environment not cows.

Our food source is controlled by few companies; Cargill, Monsanto, Adm, Louis Dreyfus and a few others.

This to me is more evil then eating meat, we need to get back to each owns regional diversity and eat what grows in your own eco system this is more valid then any argument based on emotional neo new age spiritualism. Scratch the surface and dig deeper and you will see that things are not what they seem.

As they said in X files, the TV show; Trust No one, but the truth is out there, but you will not find it at 7-11

[tryska]

*lol* rock on stovetop. excellent points.