Speaking of things that will proably eventually kill you...

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie

Commercially raised meats are garbage. Thus, any study comparing the health effects of meats to a vegetable based diet, if based on very typical meats, is meaningless.

Properly raised meats are, in fact, a health food. Feed lot meat is worse than eating garbage.

Doctors are almost always wrong when it comes to dietary issues, as their training in medical school 1. includes next to nothing about nutrition and 2. what little they are given comes from biased sources, mainly from bogus studies.

One thing most people fail to consider about vegetarianism, or a mostly plant based diet.

There are crucial fat soluble vitamins that are next to impossible to get from plants. Vitamin D (I know, not really a vitamin), PREFORMED vitamin A (carotenes are not efficiently converted to vitamin A), and K (unless you like grazing on fresh grasses).

These nutrients are badly lacking in the American diet and the best source for them is grass fed meats and dairy. I am talking about food sources, as obviously you can make your own vitamin D.

Also, some of the B vitamins are difficult to obtain from plants.

I LOVE that people who eat primarily veggies often end up taking nutritional yeast to get B12. What most people don't realize is that B12 is added to yeast.

Yet another thing to consider...

Almost all plants are grown in soils that have become badly depleted in important minerals. You might think by choosing organic veggies that you are getting sufficient minerals, but the sad truth is, even organic veggies are badly under mineralized.

So, you need to eat A LOT of them to get anywhere near the minerals you need. The flip side of this is that most plants produce some sort of chemical defenses, than in small amounts are very beneficial to our health, but in larger amounts are toxic.

Then again, most plants that we eat have been selectively bred for a long time to minimize these substances. Notice how few people enjoy eating bitter plants anymore?

Me? I love ocean veggies, like kelp, dulse, etc. Absolutely loaded with minerals, and no toxic issues. I also like to collect wild plants and mushrooms, but that is not really feasible for most people.

I know I mentioned this book in a previous post, but I really think you would find this book interesting. At least look at it's product page on Amazon, read what it is about, and maybe read some of the user reviews. It's well written and loaded with lot's of really interesting information, and many delicious and easy recipes.

http://www.amazon.com/Nourishing-Tra...5712024&sr=8-1

Like any topic that tends to draw the zealot like types, one needs to keep an open perspective about these things. If you see any reviews that might be over the top (not saying that there are any for sure), take them with a grain of salt.

It's a wonderful book that could potentially let you see things in a different light.

It is important that they do most of the studies using commercially raised meats because that is what 99.9999% of Americans eat. However, I would like to see some studies done using grass-fed meat too. The results would probably be quite different.

I am on Dr. Al Sears' e-mail list and I get an e-mail from him every day. I don't agree with him on everything but I agree with most things that he says. He has a similar philosophy to you. He believes that meat is healthy as long as it is grass-fed. He says the same thing as you about today's vegetables. He says they only contain maybe 10% of the vitamins that vegetables from 70 years ago had.

As you said, if a person is a 100% vegan they need to take vitamin B supplements That tells me that we're not meant to be 100% vegans. We should at least eat a little bit of fish.

I will read the link you provided.