Does a Vegan Diet Affect Your Intelligence? (bbc.com) 263
"The vegan diet is low in — or, in some cases, entirely devoid of — several important brain nutrients," argues the BBC. "Could these shortcomings be affecting vegans' abilities to think?"
omfglearntoplay shared their article: According to the latest statistics, there are around 375 million vegetarians on the planet. In the West, veganism has ditched the hippie stigma to become one of the fastest-growing millennial trends; in the United States, it grew by 600% between 2014 and 2017. Meanwhile in India, meat-free diets have been mainstream since the 6th Century BCE...
[T]he holes in our current understanding of what the brain needs to be healthy could potentially be a major problem for vegans, since it's hard to artificially add a nutrient to your diet, if scientists haven't discovered its worth yet... "I think we need a lot more research into vegan nutrition and health," says Heather Russell, a dietitian from The Vegan Society. "As far as we can tell, it's possible to lead a healthy life as a vegan — certainly there are people who thrive on a vegan diet." Though it's important to take supplements, she explains that a person's cardiovascular and brain health are inextricably linked, and vegans tend to have healthier hearts...
Nathan Cofnas, a biologist from Oxford University, takes a harsher view. Though vegans can take supplements, he thinks it's unrealistic to expect that they all will. Consequently, he finds the recent shift towards plant-based diets troubling, though he's sympathetic to the arguments for doing so. "Without question, veganism can cause B12 and iron deficiencies, and without question they affect your intelligence," he says.
The BBC does cite various studies about specific nutrients, but ultimately drew an angry response from a microbiologist who describes themself as "a vegan with a Ph.D., who works alongside many sharp and bright vegans," and complains the BBC is using outdated data, starting with the theory that meat consumption allowed humans to evolve larger brains. This is now considered outdated thinking as recent research, published in the journal Nature, refutes this, arguing that a higher-quality diet, including some meat but also improved by cooking, coupled with the energy saved by walking upright, growing more slowly and reproducing later, fuelled the growth in brain size. Prehistoric humans ate some meat but that alone didn't make them smart...
Sure vegans need to ensure a good B12 intake but so should everyone, as low levels of B12 are common in the entire population, regardless of diet. Everyone over 50 in the U.S. is advised to take B12 supplements and meat and dairy only contain it because animals are fed or injected with supplements... [A]ll major health bodies agree that well-planned vegan diets are appropriate for all people at all ages. For example: "It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics [America's largest organization of nutrition professionals] that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases...."
I recently wrote a piece for Viva!'s magazine Viva!life about the trend in vegan-bashing articles and this FOMO (fear of missing out) approach is popular click-bait claptrap. However, articles like this do nutrition journalism no favours as misleading the public is irresponsible and dangerous.
omfglearntoplay shared their article: According to the latest statistics, there are around 375 million vegetarians on the planet. In the West, veganism has ditched the hippie stigma to become one of the fastest-growing millennial trends; in the United States, it grew by 600% between 2014 and 2017. Meanwhile in India, meat-free diets have been mainstream since the 6th Century BCE...
[T]he holes in our current understanding of what the brain needs to be healthy could potentially be a major problem for vegans, since it's hard to artificially add a nutrient to your diet, if scientists haven't discovered its worth yet... "I think we need a lot more research into vegan nutrition and health," says Heather Russell, a dietitian from The Vegan Society. "As far as we can tell, it's possible to lead a healthy life as a vegan — certainly there are people who thrive on a vegan diet." Though it's important to take supplements, she explains that a person's cardiovascular and brain health are inextricably linked, and vegans tend to have healthier hearts...
Nathan Cofnas, a biologist from Oxford University, takes a harsher view. Though vegans can take supplements, he thinks it's unrealistic to expect that they all will. Consequently, he finds the recent shift towards plant-based diets troubling, though he's sympathetic to the arguments for doing so. "Without question, veganism can cause B12 and iron deficiencies, and without question they affect your intelligence," he says.
The BBC does cite various studies about specific nutrients, but ultimately drew an angry response from a microbiologist who describes themself as "a vegan with a Ph.D., who works alongside many sharp and bright vegans," and complains the BBC is using outdated data, starting with the theory that meat consumption allowed humans to evolve larger brains. This is now considered outdated thinking as recent research, published in the journal Nature, refutes this, arguing that a higher-quality diet, including some meat but also improved by cooking, coupled with the energy saved by walking upright, growing more slowly and reproducing later, fuelled the growth in brain size. Prehistoric humans ate some meat but that alone didn't make them smart...
Sure vegans need to ensure a good B12 intake but so should everyone, as low levels of B12 are common in the entire population, regardless of diet. Everyone over 50 in the U.S. is advised to take B12 supplements and meat and dairy only contain it because animals are fed or injected with supplements... [A]ll major health bodies agree that well-planned vegan diets are appropriate for all people at all ages. For example: "It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics [America's largest organization of nutrition professionals] that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases...."
I recently wrote a piece for Viva!'s magazine Viva!life about the trend in vegan-bashing articles and this FOMO (fear of missing out) approach is popular click-bait claptrap. However, articles like this do nutrition journalism no favours as misleading the public is irresponsible and dangerous.
Land of Fruits and Nuts (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Land of Fruits and Nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in the land of fruits and nuts. California. We're fine. (Not that I'm a vegetarian, lets alone vegan)
In California, being a vegan is quite survivable. You can get the supplements that you need to combat the deficiencies in your diet. Well-off people can afford to spend a lot to get what they should be getting from meat and animal products.
As for being a vegetarian, that's even easier. Milk, eggs, cheese... all these help.
The problem is with people who are vegetarians or vegan, but have no access to all the supplements, due to cost, access or whatever. By whatever, I would include a kid whose nutty parents have gone for a in-vogue trend, and do not understand the chemistry or nutritional science. And of course, some people, in or outside of First World, simply cannot afford meat.
So, if you have the brains and resources to make up for what animal products have been should bringing, you'll be fine. If you do not have access to meat, animal products, or supplements, you're in trouble.
Re: Land of Fruits and Nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
The fundamental problem you're dealing with is that there isn't any one place in the world where you could realistically survive as a vegan. Even if you brought in all of the exotic plants necessary to replace all of the essential amino groups, none of them are capable of growing in every part of the world. Furthermore, there isn't any viable plant source of certain other nutrients, including "brain food", like creatine.
That alone is enough to tell you that it isn't sustainable, barring some miraculous technology that is cheap and easy for synthesising what is needed based on readily available materials. Or alternatively, genetic engineering, which vegans tend to strongly oppose on the same ideological grounds that make them vegan to begin with. In fact, currently the most optional way to make use of natural resources (read: sustainability) is definitely not vegan:
https://www.theguardian.com/gl... [theguardian.com]
IMO, every vegan should try living in rural Africa for a few years, without bringing any first world resources or money in, and then after that tell everyone just how awesome being a vegan really is.
The fact is, everything about our physiology has omnivore written all over it. The author of the piece that declares this to be claptrap just ignores all of that.
Some people, even those who have access to a lot of resources, would literally die if they were forced to go vegan, namely those on dialysis, where a vegan diet is basically a long, drawn out suicide.
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There are plenty of (sub-) cultures, especially in India, that live vegan since 1000ds of years. ...
In modern society it is most likely more complicated as you have to rely on food additions other people don't need because they have it natural in foods
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Eggs basically completely replace nearly everything "meat" offers
Eggs don't replace meat's function as a growing storage of essential amino acids and cash - without refrigeration or debt.
And it runs on sequestered carbon. For years.
Plants have to be planted, grown and harvested at precise times and intervals and then stored using huge amounts of very nasty refrigerants in order to keep their nutritional values.
Even dried grains can't just sit around forever.
And the planting/harvesting cycle is literally living on credit - i.e. debt.
Meanwhile, animals just keep on living,
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Eggs don't need fridges. They happily last for weeks if not months. ...
Other food can be dried, like rice, dried, like tomatoes, salted, fermented, or depending where you live, just be eaten right away.
Most hot countries do not need fridges, I just cut a fresh coconut every day and a few bananas etc.
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Eggs don't need fridges. They happily last for weeks if not months. Other food can be dried, like rice, dried, like tomatoes, salted, fermented, or depending where you live, just be eaten right away. Most hot countries do not need fridges, I just cut a fresh coconut every day and a few bananas etc. ...
Oh now this explains a lot. Refrigeration was one of those transformational technologies (like public sanitation) that fundamentally changed the quality of life of any society that enacted it. Now refrigeration requires a working and reliable grid so its effects are not felt everywhere but anywhere they are, they change the basic economics of food and its delivery to the public. It makes getting meat much cheaper and easier allowing the poor to eat meat more often and safely. It changes the population i
First Post! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First Post! (Score:5, Funny)
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Not so simple. A lack of essential nutrients in the diet will obviously have consequences, but thankfully it is possible, with supplements, to avoid that situation. That's why people can stay healthy vegans for years and years.
Seems like a 100 percent un-natural diet to me. Which gets pretty amusing when you meet a vegan that is totally organic and pretend natural.
full disclosure: I have had the privilege of working around quite a few vegans in my university environment, and with two exceptions they were all what is best termed - abusive. So I'm not all that into the lifestyle. Usually a problem to be around. Neurotic, and group meals were such a hassle that we stopped having them. The Vegan would spend a large part of the o
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Whoosh!
Meat Free Vegan (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile in India, meat-free diets have been mainstream since the 6th Century BCE...
Meat free does not equal Vegan. If you can eat eggs and dairy it's far easier to get the nutrients that you need than if you completely shun all animal products. That means no eggs, no milk, no cheese, no honey...
Re: Meat Free Vegan (Score:2, Insightful)
Animal products such as ghee are an important part of a Hindu diet so yep, they are vegetarian not strict vegan.
I say just look at our teeth: we arent evolved for veganism.
Re: Meat Free Vegan (Score:5, Interesting)
Even with such animal supplements, 75% of Indians suffer from vitamin deficiency [indiatimes.com]. The dependency on animal food is even stronger in Westerners, as populations that traditionally eat enough meat are genetically [cornell.edu] incapable of coping with the lack.
And that's vegetarian diet, not vegan. For vegans, there's more and more calls to forbid that diet to children and adolescents.
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Flamebait, really? I'd mod you up if I could. Very interesting and insightful. I would definitely support a ban on vegan diets for children.
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What if they're poor, though, or something like that that affects access to quality foods? Would it still make sense to use them as an example?
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You just described most of the global population, including most of the people in the states, so YES it makes sense to use them as an example.
If you shop at whole foods you aren't a fair example, if you can afford to eschew whole foods for a more pure farmers market experience, you aren't a fair example. If you can't afford to order a quarter pounder instead of a mcdouble YOU are starting to be a fair example.
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Question is can you get those vitamins another way? Supplements or different vegan foods.
I'm not a vegan but I do take vitamin supplements.
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I have actually, yes.
I take B12 because I have CFS, and glucosamine for arthritis. On top of that a multivitamin which even though most of it probably passes right through acts as a kind of safety net so that even if my diet is less than perfect I'm still getting everything I need. Some days I get too caught up in things and don't eat properly.
Re: Meat Free Vegan (Score:5, Funny)
I say just look at our teeth: we arent evolved for veganism.
Incisors are obviously for tearing bark off trees.
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How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf?
Humans don't sneak up on their prey (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Humans don't sneak up on their prey (Score:2)
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For example, read about endurance hinting [wikipedia.org]. As for horses, human runners start winning after somewhat over two hours.
Re: Humans don't sneak up on their prey (Score:4, Informative)
Google isn't terribly difficult to use. Neither is Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Humans don't sneak up on their prey (Score:2)
Re: Humans don't sneak up on their prey (Score:4, Interesting)
1) In that link, the horses were all carrying a human.
2) The horse doesn't know what the fuck a marathon is, it doesn't give a shit. The human is a fairly serious athlete who is motivated to win. Without a rider, they're not even going to run the race.
3) Humans who actually hunt horses do not use this sort of technique. Ever. It is completely unheard of. In the cases where a human runs after a horse and eventually catches it, it is a trained horse that got tired of running and stopped to eat or drink. Not comparable to a hunting scenario.
4) The other link says that in humans who practice it, it only works in the midday heat, and is mostly used against antelope, which generally are not good distance runners. Another example given is hunting cheetahs, who are also sprinters. Horses are naturally good distance runners, even in the midday heat.
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Another amazing one is the tradition of stealing food from lions [youtu.be]. They walk up with a confidence bluff, but it's just enough to scare the lions off for a bit, long enough to get some food and walk away.
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It isn't hard to calculate or even find youtube examples. Of course they are average/typical horses (carrying riders) and not typical humans. A high endurance horse will still win over yet longer distances. But if you think about it, it makes sense. The horse has four legs so it can get a quick boost but it is expending way more energy to move four legs and more weight besides, especially if burdened with a rider.
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we hunted by running after the prey until they were too tired to fight back.
Running after prey until they were too tired would only work in very open areas.
Most prey animals are much faster than we humans, so would be able to either run beyond our sight, or hide behind vegetation and terrain features, or both.
On open savannah in Africa, sure, but just about anywhere else with some trees and bushes, nope.
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Guess why we had to develop tools to be successful hunters outside the African savannah...
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The intelligence is needed to sneak up on the leaf without the owner noticing (or to negotiate access to the leaf with the owner. (Feel free to put "owner" in quotation marks if that fits better with your view of the world.)
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I thought most /. readers were also Larry Niven readers. Oh, well.
"Sneak up on a leaf" is a quote from a Ringworld novel.
Made by a sentient cat.
In a fictional world.
IOW, a joke within the context of this discussion.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Meat Free Vegan (Score:5, Funny)
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I'll bite...
The increase of time saving technology now means we're living a more sedatary lifestyle than ever before in human history leading to increases in the rates of heart disease, diabetes and severe mental health issues in most first world countries.
Male suicide rates have increased many fold led by such things as gender confusion, it's good thing that women are now finally getting equality but this is being driven at such a pace that it's tearing at the fabric of what males have been taught and lead
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It's the media that does it. It broadcasts bad news all day, every day. This makes people falsely think that we have it bad. Your information is all true, but people won't want to believe it,
Then you throw in the media's political bias that makes them lie to create a sense of crisis, so they can ram through unpopular and unneeded changes in society.
And actually, lynchings weren't common. Compare them to the violence of a single month in Democrat-run cities like Chicago or Baltimore and looks very sad.
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OK, but Gandhi refused to eat eggs. So for at least some Hindus, vegetarianism excludes eggs as well as meat.
OTOH, I believe he would drink milk, though this is basically because of the existence of lhassi, and I can't tie it directly to either Gandhi or vegetarianism.
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Re:Meat Free Vegan (Score:4, Interesting)
Thai vegetarians eat meat as long as somebody else bought it.
When I go the temple with my wife, I stay in the meditation hall while she brings food to the monks. Watching their eyes get big as they reach for the chicken makes me sad for them.
At least the people taking selfies of the alter are just laypeople who aren't expected to know better.
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Re: Meat Free Vegan (Score:3)
In a culinary context (at least in the U.S.), meat is generally the flesh of mammals, while chicken is poultry and fish is seafood. This taxonomy was likely largely influenced by rules around ritual purity in Abrahamic religions, which made their why into government nutritional guidelines back around WWII.
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Or you could just take supplements. (Score:2)
And it is possible to eat a meat free diet and get all the nutrients. It's just a huge pain in the ass and very, very expensive. Dollar per pound of calorie vegetables are way pricier than meat, at least here in the States. Bill Clinton made a show of his vegan diet a few years back but neglected to mention the cost of the spread or his personal chef.
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This is silly. "Does eating too much meat cause laziness of the spleen?" the article might as well ask, "We don't know, but ther
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Meanwhile in India, meat-free diets have been mainstream since the 6th Century BCE...
This is basically a lie, and the supporting link is to a piece from a Seventh Day Adventist author, who (surprise!) concludes that the Seventh Day Adventist diet is the best.
Re:Meat Free Vegan (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention most people are "wannabe" vegetarians and vegans. A poll conducted found about 10% of people called themselves vegetarian, while another 2% considered themselves vegan.
When they evaluated their diets, the numbers were closer to 2% were vegetarians and 0.4% vegan. Turns out a lot of them use "cheat" days to eat meat, milk and other things.
If you cheat, you're not really vegan or vegetarian. Of course, the plant-based meat substitutes should make keeping a meat free diet easier. A lot of people do it because it's trendy to appear to care, but it's actually hard to keep up such a diet.
(And again, the conversion rate is pretty poor. Chicken is among the best at around 1.7lbs of feed per pound of chicken, pork is around 5lbs, and beef at 10lbs of feed per pound of cattle. But the real conversion rate - the amount of edible product is far worse - chicken drops to 5lbs, pork 10bls, and beef 30lbs. That's why all the plant-based meats are going after beef - the poor conversion rate means even a pound of highly processed plant based beef consumes far fewer resources than a pound of beef).
What people think in the west is not usually reali (Score:2)
What people think in the west is not usually reality. the foodstuffs that typical hindu eats are not "vegan", making it indeed far easier to get everything one needs to stay alive healthy.
furthermore the usual reason, and traditional reason, was just that they didn't have meat to spare for eating. efficiency reasons. them having been at population limit for centuries more than most western countries were, while being in tropical climate.
also buddhists eat as a rule of thumb _anything_ too. monks are even o
Re:Meat Free Vegan (Score:4, Insightful)
"Thou shalt not cook a goat in its mothe's milk" was the root of kosher law prohibiting mixing of dairy with meat in Kosher canon.
Similarly "thou shalt not eat thy honorary mother whose milk you drank" is the root of cow worship
In economic terms, the tribes that worshiped the cow and did not eat it extracted 10 times the calorie in the life time of the cow compared to the tribes that was not averse to beef. Eventually population growth of the tribes that have more calories to consume won over the beef eating tribes.
Re: Meat Free Vegan (Score:3)
Also, religious diets do not always restrict meat full time. They may restrict your diet but then demand or allow meat for certain religious holidays or purposes of worship.
In India specifically, vegetarianism (not veganism) is prescribed only by some Hindu sects, but they prescribe meat for pregnant women and children or others that are weak and sick. Others prefer vegetarianism but allow meat if the animal was slaughtered with minimal suffering.
Vegan (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked for a number of years for a group led by vegans many were raw vegans. They didn't force anyone working for them to go vegan but a fair amount of influence was used. I was amoung the non-vegan group. I have to say the vegans seems to get sick more often and those could afford it consumed a lot of supplements to makeup for what the diet didn't provide. The vegans tended to be health obsessed so were also the ones that did exercise regularly, which probably did more for them than being vegan.
I will go vegetarian for months at a time keeping dairy products helps get protein and B12 into the diet vegans run low on. But I do best in when eating limited meat, mainly poultry and some fish and rest typical fare. I do exercise regularly nothing crazy and it seems to work. I think it's all just about understanding what body needs, and keeping fast food and the comfort foods as occasional treat and not daily is the key.
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Re: Vegan (Score:2)
Yes, Trump supporters' proof (Score:2, Interesting)
Trump Supporters Score Higher on Verbal Ability Tests [reason.com]
And they do better on most science knowledge questions, too.
This assumes that being a vegan and a Trump supporter is rare.
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.
Sadly, the general public didn't do hugely better than Clinton supporters, with only 57.1% (compared to 49.6%) knowing that the earth goes around the sun and that it takes a year to do so...When one compares Trump supporters to all the rest of the public combined (rather than just to Clinton supporters), the pattern for these nine science questions is roughly similar (though weaker).
Just how many Jill Stein voters did they have to include in the poll to make both of those statements true?
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Oh, and this pretty much sums up why Trump voters are seen as ignorant:
If, however, you asked about beliefs, rather than knowledge, on evolution and the origins of the universe you would get substantially better answers on individual science questions from Clinton supporters than Trump supporters.
Trump voters know the facts, but still continue to believe in some fairy story instead.
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So, being a slashdotter I of course didn't click your spam link, but I did look up your source.
"Reason" Magazine is just libertarian propaganda newsletter.
This is not science (Score:4)
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I guess this is how they scored so low on the intelligence chart. They get asked a question, don't answer it and instead preach about veganism, so the interviewer notes it down as "wrong".
Re:This is not science (Score:4, Interesting)
The data I looked at said that in wealthy nations 4% of vegans tested have nutrient deficiencies, compared to 0% of vegetarians and 2% of meat eaters.
In poor nations as many as 15% of vegetarians were nutrient deficient, and a higher number of vegans.
Other sources had different but similar numbers.
Re: This is not science (Score:3)
India's diet is not vegan (Score:3)
The vegetarians of India are not vegan, nor is their diet animal-products-free.
The staunchest Hindu diet includes milk and cheese, as well as ghee (from milk fat). Some eat eggs too, just not meat.
All that is a source for essential nutrients (vitamins, calcium, ...) that vegans have to get from supplements (or not at all).
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Vegetarian, Vegan: Why? (Score:2)
"A vegetarian diet can include: Vegetables and fruits, Grains and pulses, Nuts and seeds, Eggs, Dairy products, Honey."
Vegans don't eat dairy products or eggs.
No problems with Vitamin B-12: Take vitamin and mineral supplements.
There are cow hormones in dairy foods. Also, abuse of cows causes problems that affect the chemistry of meat. [google.com]
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Apparently, there are bacteria that produce it, and that's what's used for B12 supplements. (It's also in yeasts -- I don't know why they don't use them.)
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Bacterial fermentation.
Specifically, Propionibacterium spp. (aka the acne bacteria) are grown with potassium cyanide and sodium nitrite in a heated environment.
One species of Propionibacterium is also used to make the holes in "Swiss" cheese.
Most other fermentation processes produce it too, like kimchi or sauerkraut.
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Vegans don't eat honey, either.
In my experience... (Score:5, Funny)
...they may not affect your intelligence.
They do seem to make you insufferable.
Then again, so does going to Yale or driving a Prius, so it may not be the diet, per se.
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It's mostly B Vitamins (Score:2)
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You're not a vegan, why do you describe yourself as one, while admitting you're not? It just sounds stupid.
The diet you described is called pesco-vegetarian.
Mitochondria (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know if it affect intelligence but a vagan diet seems to nuke mitochondria. In this study to see the effect of stearic acid (C 18:0) on mitochondria they did a two day low fat vegan diet to set a baseline first. After only two day the subjects' mito were in bad shape.
"After 2 days of a low-C18:0 diet, the mitochondria in neutrophils are quite fragmented; 50% of all neutrophils had fragmented mitochondria and fewer than 10% had fused mitochondria prior to ingesting the C18:0 drink "
The study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
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Damn, still can't edit posts.
"affects" "vegan" "days" and probably some more spelling errors.
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If that was even close to true they'd be dropping over left and right from all sorts of problems. Mitochondria are... kindof important.
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Actually, the study looks solid.
I wonder if you're not reading rather more into "fragmented mitochondria" than is really there. It doesn't mean they're non-functioning, or about to cause apoptosis of the host cell. One mitigating factor, mentioned in the article abstract, would be that "humans, like flies, express Elovl6, which elongates C16:0 to C18:0 thereby providing an endogenous source of C18:0." I think the figures go some way towards demonstrating this, as they appear to show an increase in mitochond
The sharpest minds don't bother with veganism (Score:5, Interesting)
Conspicuous lifestyles are the same as conspicuous consumption. The insufferable prick who can't talk about anything but their vegan lifestyle is as big of a pain in the ass as the idiot driving a Lamborghini to work. Neither is the smartest in their field. The true leaders and geniuses I have met don't have time for artificial restrictions or thinking about what they eat in such depth. They have uninteresting lunches, usually have uninteresting cars...in both cases, nice, but not the flashiest you'll see.
Our founder/CEO is worth several hundred million and drives a 10yo BMW...nice car, but he's too busy running a successful company to spend a weekend a year searching for the newest/flashiest toy. I saw him in the elevator this week. Casual suit, nothing too flashy...didn't look expensive at all. His iPhone is 2yo...same principle.
He doesn't have time to update his phone every time a new model is released...he doesn't have time for stupid and pointless lifestyle choices...he's crushing it running a successful company.
Sure, the average American would do better eating less meat, but Vegans take it too far and every one I have met is a narcissist that loves being the topic of conversation. I've met great vegetarians, but never a good vegan. Disregarding nutrients, I already know their intelligence isn't that high because they're wasting all that time and effort living that lifestyle with no proven benefits. In fact, most vegans I know are surprisingly fat. They usually have gross bodies I'd never want and most I've met look 10 years older than they actually are. The best bodies I've seen are from people who eat meat (in smaller portions than I). They have no stupid restrictions...just small portions and smart choices.
Finally, on that topic...were meat consumption the root of all health problems, India would have the best metrics on the globe. I think America has more to learn, health-metrics-wise, from Japan than India. They seem to eat anything, but in smaller quantities and with more fresh ingredients. They also have more cultural reverence for their elders. Many things are affecting my health. I am confident animal products are nowhere near the top.
Correlation and causation. (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe it's not a vegan diet that causes lower intelligence, it's lower intelligence that causes a vegan diet. I'm being only half serious with this comment.
What I found as a flawed study was the comparing of what kind of soup students consumed and their performance in school. They pointed out that the poorer students took the cheaper vegetable soup, while many of the students from wealthier families had soup with meat. There's a known correlation between intelligence and income. People with higher intelligence tend to get higher paying work. There's a known correlation between intelligence of parents and their children. More intelligent couples tend to pass on genes for intelligence to their children. There's also matters of intelligent parents reinforcing intelligence in children with things like managing illness and injury better, creating more nutritious diets for their children, reading to their children, providing more mentally challenging recreation, and so on.
There's so many things at play here that this simple study does not seem to have much value in correlating meat consumption to intelligence, or determining any kind of causation.
I remember many humorous commentary on the discovery that income had a correlation to alcohol consumption. If alcohol consumption causes higher incomes then people could just drink themselves into billionaires.
I don't remember what got me started on this but for a while I would have a beer or glass of wine after work. I discovered this was relaxing, and helped with my arthritis pain. I also discovered over time that this was costing more money than a cared to spend and was likely the cause of some weight gain. I stopped this habit of my after work alcohol consumption and my weight lowered. The causation between alcohol and weight does seem clear to me in this case. Trying to place causation of eating meat with performance in school does not seem so clear.
Also what muddies this is the mention of diet being dictated by genetics. Humans that have been separated by potentially thousands of miles for thousands of years could see differences in how diet affects intelligence. We see adult lactose tolerance as one example that separates populations. This comes with variations in height, skin color, hair color, bone density, etc. Would it not also be logical to see some populations require more meat in their diet to maintain their mental capacity?
I expect this is something that will take far more research to work out how meat consumption relates to intelligence. Even then this will have to take into account genetic differences, not just separating African from Asian, but also male from female, or even specific genes.
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I have always questioned the intelligence of being ideologically opposed to eating honey, but are totally OK with cane sugar.
Then I asked a few vegans about it. The most common reaction? "What do you mean honey isn't vegan?" Second most common: "I'm not actually that strict, I do eat honey."
Checks out; people smart enough to understand the words call the exact same diet "vegetarian."
I heard it gives you psychic powers (Score:3)
From the documentary, “Scott Pilgrim Versus the World”
Wallace: "Hey, man, question. I always wondered, how does not eating dairy products give you psychic powers?"
Todd: "Okay. You know how you only use 10% of your brain? That's because the other 90% is filled with curds and whey."
Kim: "Did you learn that at Vegan Academy?"
Todd: "Go ahead and get snippy, baby. If you knew the science, maybe I'd listen to a word you're saying."
They should of stayed home (Score:2)
The Vega system is 26 light years away
Chicken or Egg? (Score:2)
Does a vegan diet make you stupid, or do stupid people choose a vegan diet?
Bonebroth (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not gonna go into detail because this is too late to catch anyone's eye anyway but it's very interesting what happened to my family since my wife started making her own bonebroth.
We drink a bit with every meal and every meal consists brimarily of meat with a sauce based on the broth. We eat a LOT of veggies dripping with animal fats.
And we make sure to eat only three meals a day and we try to limit our carbohydrate intake to one meal a day. Sometimes there'll be intermittent fasting by cutting one meal (we do that individually and not for the kids).
Both my wife and I are losing weight. Much more than that though were losing circumference. Our skin is healthier (daughter's persistent eczema almost gone after one month), we look younger, we have more energy and tire less easily.
All in all, if this happens to remain like that for the next five months, then I'm sold.
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brimarily.... it's too early to type :D.
Anyway, I wanted to add that I feel more easily sated since eating more animal fats.
And since cholesterol is a big, fat lie apparently I'm interested to see my blood tests.
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The difference is that we get the nutrients the body needs. I have a lot of experience in losing weight. I've lost 30kg from my heaviest point. And it's always been HARD to not put in cheat meals or even days.
Since cutting out vegetable oils everything has become easy.
Vegetarian can work if you consume enough eggs and dairy and if you take in the veggies with lots of butter and cream. But you and I know most pe9ple are asshats and will eat vegetarian by ingesting salads with a lIght vinaigrette...
Fermenting
Incorrect (Score:4, Informative)
While in Europe poultry farming is nearly 100% intensive farming (variety of reasons), for beef and sheep (I dunno for pig) it actually is more wide spread in grazing (there are notable exception but i don't think they don't do the majority of the meat). So while it is true that the US *must* add b12 due to the feed processes not including much grazing, that was not true as far back as 2005-2006 in Europe when i checked 10 years after the BSE scare. now a lot could have changed in 15 years. But the fact is a normally fed beef do not need at all settlement to produce b12. Vegan diet *always* do require supplement.
Vegetarians (Score:5, Funny)
Humanitarians frighten me.
A vegan diet is healthier (Score:2)
cause and effect (Score:2)
It could be the other way around - low intelligence individuals might be more likely to pick up a vegan diet, especially one where they don't offset the nutritional issues in other ways.
Not saying all vegans are stupid - but there's an awful lot of stupid vegans out there, like the ones who force their pets on a vegan diet - which is highly unhealthy for animals that evolved as meat eaters.
Vegan here; it's not that difficult.... (Score:3)
B12: We only need a little bit, and we probably get more than we need due to accidental ingestion of spiders, mites, etc., EXCEPT that people who are older, or have intestinal issues (which may or may not cause other symptoms), can't absorb it as well. These folks should get B12 injections monthly or every-other-monthly.
Vitamins C/D: We're less likely to be deficient in C, but still quite likely, and much MORE likely to be deficient in D. Again, supplementation is advised, but these can be taken orally.
Protein: a non-issue for vegans in developed countries unless you eat too much sugar or high-glycemic carbs. (But you do need multiple sources; deficiency of any single essential amino acid can cause problems.)
Now for the thing that current science says we may really be hurting for: omega-3 fatty acids. We vegans tend to have a lopsided omega-6 versus omega-3 ratio, because frankly there aren't a lot of great vegan sources of omega 3s, though there are a few (e.g., flaxseeds, walnuts). Once again, it's a good idea to supplement.
Finally: not everything that is vegan (sugars, artificial sweeteners, soybean and other processed oils, etc.) is necessarily good for you. The same dietary advice that makes sense for others - avoid sugars and high-glycemic carbs, aim for density of nutrients rather than calories, exercise, avoid toxins, avoid stress, etc. - applies equally to vegans as well.
Re: Correlation or Causation (Score:3)
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So .... it's like a religious thing?
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Bacon is fucking nasty, it is full of chemicals. That's what it tastes like; preservatives.
If that tastes good to you, maybe eat less fast food and your taste buds will come back?
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Yeah, clearly the billions of bacon lovers are wrong and you're right...NOT.
Re:Correlation or Causation (Score:4, Funny)
You spelled Broccoli wrong.
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