Birdy

Don't shoot the messenger, but this i found this to be an interesting article. At least something to think about.

Save the Planet: Shop Walmart

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/09/14/save-the-planet-shop-walmart/

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Thanks for posting Timouse, and great work with your farm!

I was just trying to be cute, Thorgnor. I'm guilty as charged, but not 100% of the time.

Watts up With That? is a great blog.

Dave, I don't think it's quite as easy as citing your own state of well-being as evidence that we can survive without meat. There's countless supporting research behind the ill-effects of grains and soy, the two things Vegans rely on most to supplement protein in their diet. While I'm happy to hear that you're making it out there, you're also a relatively young guy. As Grandma would say, don't count your chickens until they've hatched.

Furthermore, to actually sustain and grow enough fruits, vegetables, grains, and soy to feed a meatless world scares the shit out of me, when I think of the evils mass processing has introduced.

It's not an argument that we should eat meat because 'that's the way it's been', but more so that our bodies up to and including this point have not evolved to allow for anything different. Maybe in another 100,000 years I'd be singing a different tune.

But I'm not saying we need a lot to get by on. More like less of one, more of another. Not a 'wank' of dominance over animals, but a recognition of what our bodies do with the food we put in them.

Why bother taking more than we need?

Perhaps because we're eating the wrong things and our bodies recognize it.

From newtreatments.org:

It's good to point out that grains and soy aren't edible in nature

without processing and so it's safe to assume we haven't eaten them for

millions of years. Only since the advent of agriculture we started to

rely on grains for our food supply. That was a huge mistake. There are

several reasons why grains and soy are bad:

Grains are in fact a large supply of starch, surrounded by a kernel.

Starch decomposes (digests) into maltose and isomaltose in the

intestines, which then decompose into glucose. You can look at it this

way. When you take a slice of bread and crush it in your hand, you are

virtually eating that amount of refined sugar. The problem is that that

amount of sugar elevates the bloodsugar levels amazingly fast and

causes your pancreas to produce lots and lots of insulin to metabolise

it. Humans are not adapted to eat such amounts of concentrated

carbohydrates and the pancreas (and adrenals) aren't fit to the job.

Over time one will develop insulin resistance, hypoglycemia, diabetes

II. Another problem is that the immune system crashes when your

bloodsugar levels increases to high levels. It takes *hours* for the

the immune system to recover fully.

Another problem with refined grains is that it's void of minerals and

vitamins, which are needed to properly digest and metabolise the huge

amount of starch. So, each time you eat a slice of bread, your body

needs to take minerals and vitamins from its limited stores to digest

and metabolise it. Over time, you will develop deficincies of these

vitamines and minerals.

You could eat the grains unrefined, but then a lot of antinutrients

will remain. Antinutrients are substances that bind to essential

vitamins and minerals, making them worthless or impossible to absorb

from the digestive tract.

So, either way, refined or unrefined, grains will cause problems..

Further, many grains contain a lot of allergens which upset your immune

system and causes the development of allergies. Imagine this: Humans

have never in their evolution of millions of years eaten grains and

now, since only 4.000-10.000 years ago, we are relying on this food.

Our genes aren't adapted to these foods. Grains are in fact

incompatible with humans (and also dogs and cats and many mammals)...

Soy beans aren't edible raw and they are full of antinutrients and

substances that act like hormones in the human body. Eating soy can

cause women to have menstruations that last 2 days longer than normal

and are way more painfull.

Another problems with grains and soy bean it that they can't be eaten

raw, which only allows us to eat them cooked. Cooking essentially

damages all foods. The more you eat raw, the better you will feel..

I forgot perhaps the most important reason why grains are bad: They are

very hard to digest properly. As I said above, they need to be digested

in two phases.. First, the starches, which are very long chains of

carbohydrate molecules, must be seperated into small pieces consisting

of 2 glucose molecules. This is called maltose (or isomaltose). Next,

the intestines need to produce enough enzymes (maltase) to digest the

maltose into the elemental glucose molecules. As you see, quite a lot

of work.. The problem is that the human body isn't fit for this job and

a part of the starch isn't absorbed and descends into the large

intestines, feeding critters, causing inflammation, gasses, damage to

the wall of the intestines, and other problems.

Compare this to fruit and honey, which are predigested foods. They

primarily contain glucose and fructose, which don't need to be digested

at all and can be absorbed painlessly by the intestines. Because

everything is easily absorbed it can't feed the critters.

From UCSF.edu's Science Cafe:

Paleolithic Diet May Help Control Diabetes

May 3, 2010

By Jeffrey Norris

Caveman cuisine is all the rage. Way back in the day, it was just what everybody ate. Now it’s called the Paleolithic diet. Devotees dine on lean meat. They consume a cornucopia’s worth of fruits and vegetables. They eschew grains and dairy products. They chew on raw nuts, but forego legumes such as beans and peanuts.

Beyond those broad guidelines, people disagree on the finer points of Stone Age eating habits. The diets of our ancient forebears undoubtedly varied depending on what was available in the part of the globe they inhabited. But think “unprocessed.â€

Two UCSF physicians and some of their patients with type 2 diabetes are hoping that the Paleolithic diet will merit more than fleeting popularity as just another futile food fancy.

The initial research findings are striking. Without losing weight, participants in a preliminary study improved blood sugar control, blood pressure control and blood vessel elasticity. They lowered levels of blood fats such as cholesterol. And most amazingly, participants achieved these results in less than three weeks — simply by switching to a Paleolithic diet.

Human Evolution Lags Changing Lifestyles

The original Paleolithic diet dates back to before the advent of agriculture. That’s a milestone humans reached 10,000 or more years ago.

Advocates reason that humans evolved to live healthily as hunter-gatherers. They say our species hasn’t evolved quickly enough to adapt metabolically to changes in our diet due to agriculture – and certainly not fast enough to thrive on the new, processed creations of the food industry. According to the current crop of would-be hunter-gatherers, that’s why we suffer the chronic diseases of modern society. Among the metabolic afflictions, diabetes now is epidemic.

Two anthropologists wrote about the hypothesized benefits of a Paleolithic diet a quarter century ago in the New England Journal of Medicine. Even so, the diet only has become a topic for mainstream discussion over the past decade. Too few studies have been conducted to draw conclusions about the diet’s merits or drawbacks. Diet studies tend to be expensive to fund.

People with diabetes are more likely to have heart or kidney disease, or to develop these diseases later. High blood pressure and diabetes are the two major risk factors for kidney disease. Undesirable levels of blood fats, or lipids, are associated with heart disease. A Paleolithic diet might be able to help lower these risks.

To look for more hard evidence for the potential health benefits of a Paleolithic diet, UCSF kidney specialist Lynda Frassetto, MD, and her collaborators conducted a study supported by the Clinical Research Center at UCSF. The nine participants were sedentary and out-of-shape, but otherwise healthy. They ate a normal diet for three days, ramped up to a Paleolithic diet over a week, and then stuck to it for another 10 days.

Lynda Frassetto, MD

Participants scored significantly better on almost all measures of health risk used in the experiment.

For instance, the average reduction in the best-known “bad†cholesterol — low-density lipoprotein (LDL) — was roughly 22 percent. That compares favorably to what can be expected from six months of treatment with a cholesterol-lowering statin drug, according to Frassetto. Eight of nine participants had lower levels of total cholesterol and LDL at the conclusion of the study. All nine had lower levels of another “bad†cholesterol, called very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL). All nine also had lower levels of fats known as triglycerides.

Frassetto’s research team also found that participants could exercise just as hard on a treadmill as at the beginning of the study, maintaining the same cardiac blood-pumping output – but they could do so at a lower heart rate and at a lower blood pressure.

Insulin-resistance and the Paleolithic diet

That study did not include people with diabetes. Still, the study subjects who were the most insulin-resistant improved the most, Frassetto says.

Those early results led to another study — this one focused on people with type 2 diabetes. To complete the study Frassetto and UCSF endocrinologist Umesh Masharani, MD, are looking for a few more people with type 2 diabetes who do not also have confounding medical problems. The ongoing study is not open to individuals taking prescribed insulin or thiazolidinediones such as Avandia or Actos.

The researchers control calorie intake in their studies so that participants maintain their pre-study weights. They do not want to measure the impacts of weight loss, only the effects of the different food content in the diets.

The study volunteers are not chasing down critters or picking berries. They’re not even doing their own grocery shopping. The study is run more like a take-out restaurant — one without daily specials. Participants pick up food every few days and do their best to eat it all and nothing else. Some find it a bit monotonous, Masharani says.

Weight Loss Potential

The Paleolithic meals also are a bit bulky. With all that fiber from fruits and vegetables the Paleolithic diet is less calorie-dense. “We break it down into multiple small meals,†Masharani explains. “What most people complain about is that it is just too much food.â€

Both Masharani and Frassetto are convinced that study subjects on the Paleolithic diet would lose weight if they ate only as much as they felt like eating — instead of the amount specified by the research protocol to maintain weight.

In the current study there also is a control group. Those assigned to the control group receive a diet that meets criteria established by the American Diabetes Association (ADA). In both diets about 40 percent of calories come from carbohydrates, 30 percent from fat, and 30 percent from protein. Ten study patients will be assigned to each group.

Compared to the ADA-type diet, the Paleolithic diet used in the study is very low in salt – less than two grams per day. The Paleolithic diet also is higher in potassium, lower in polyunsaturated fat, and less acidic.

As a nephrologist, Frassetto initially became interested in the Paleolithic diet because of its low acidity. Aging and kidney failure are both associated with increasing blood acidity, she explains. That does not prove that the increasing acidity is contributing to poor health, but the body does try to keep blood pH tightly regulated. Fruits and vegetables help buffer acid-producing foods, which include dairy products and grains, Frassetto says.

Patients in the current study also sign on for blood and urine tests. Among them is an insulin clamp, the gold-standard test for insulin resistance, according to Masharani. Participants receive an insulin infusion at a steady rate, and then a variable amount of glucose is given to keep the blood glucose level normal. Insulin-resistant people need very little glucose to maintain normal levels in the blood. In contrast, insulin-sensitive people need much more.

Paleolithic Diet Versus ADA Diet

Lab measurements made as part of the ongoing study so far point to improvements even among diabetics assigned to the ADA-type diet. This occurred despite the fact that patients thought they already had been eating according to ADA guidelines.

“I think we get the results we do because we make all the food,†Masharani says. “Even people with diabetes who have become educated about diet don’t necessarily realize what is in what they are eating. It is very difficult to keep track.â€

But so far, people in the ongoing study who have been assigned to the Paleolithic diet have shown more improvement, according to Masharani.

If preliminary findings are confirmed in larger studies – assuming those studies are funded – then the Paleolithic diet might one day be adopted as a powerful, non-pharmaceutical treatment for type 2 diabetes.

Be that as it may, it is uncertain whether even patients who stand to benefit most would stick with a proven Paleolithic diet. As Frassetto says, “We’re talking about a fairly drastic change.â€

Masharani and Frassetto next want to find out which specific components of the Paleolithic diet might be the most beneficial. They want to investigate diets with varying amounts of salt, acidity, potassium and polyunsaturated fat. They already have applied for a grant from the National Institutes of Health to further explore the role of salt. “I think diet and exercise remain the major ways that we are going to have an impact on diabetes in the public health domain,†Masharani says. “I don’t think we are going to reverse the trend by giving more pills.â€

haha... be nice Phorbesie...

Haha, sure did Thorgnor... probably mostly because i had a special place in my heart for you.

That, and in those days, i spent all my free time arguing stuff i didn't really understand online (i'm an INFJ) because i like to argue, grew out of it, and started to read.

The people that argue CO2 is evil are just people... who need to advance their research. CO2 is GREEEEEEEN.

Fuckin' Al Gore.

All science taught is the result of someone's research, and if it wasn't your prof who wrote the book, it was another one.

I hear what you're saying and Davey Boy is right... there's tonnes of peer-reviewed, scholarly info out there to support both sides of the argument, but i have a dinner date!

Just thought it was an interesting article, something to think about. You won't change my mind and i won't change yours. Even though i'm right. hahaha

Ollie - the answer is an agrarian diet - what we eat today. The advent of agriculture and the last 10,000 years.

It's two sides of an argument that scientists are having as we speak - there's no point in sending me your textbook articles, though i appreciate the offer. Textbooks are written by professors, who too, are opinionated, and list their books on the course syllable in order to advance themselves and make money. I'd take your textbooks with a grain of salt, just as we should all take everything we see and hear.

My personal opinion - science and the environment aren't so much about science and the environment anymore than they are about politics.

So while you say my theories are 'shot down', my logical and reasoned response would be, shot down by who? And then, conversely, point them in the direction of 99.5% of our existence, and propose the idea that perhaps it's not 'meat', but by-products, chemicals, toxins and everything else we put into the process to mass produce boxes of frozen chicken breasts and sirloin burgers. The kind of stuff that i'm not talking about, and could be changed by caring what we put into our bodies more.

As for the ethical argument, to each their own, I guess. I just view it in that we're all a part of the food chain, and as such, this is the way life rolls.

Hhaha... well, consider this - mankind has existed, developed and evolved for 99.5% of his time on earth on a paleolithic diet - mostly made up of meat, fish, vegetables, fruits and nuts. It's only been in the past 10,000 years that a more agrarian diet has come about - grains, dairy, legumes, etc. If you study it - you'll see all kinds of supporting evidence that shows a direct correlation between the agrarian diet and cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, etc. It's not meat that's causing the problem.

Here's an interesting website... http://rawfoodsos.com/

Scroll down to the post called: The China Study, Wheat and Heart Disease; Oh My!

From the National Center for Policy Analysis

Who's Afraid of CO2?

by Merrill Matthews Jr.

For the past 10 years, carbon dioxide (CO2) has gotten a bad rap. Despite the fact that 95 percent of the CO2 emitted each year is produced by nature (see Figure I), environmentalists started referring to CO2 as a pollutant in 1988 after some scientists claimed that the 30 percent rise in atmospheric CO2 over the last 150 years was attributable to humans and was causing global warming. In response, Vice President Al Gore in his 1992 book Earth in the Balance called for "carbon taxes," stating that "filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other pollutants . . . is a willful expansion of our dysfunctional civilization into vulnerable parts of the natural world." The evidence shows neither that a modest warming will threaten human life through environmental catastrophe nor that the recent rise in CO2 levels is responsible for the measured rise in global temperature.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is tasteless, colorless, nontoxic to humans at concentrations up to 13 times present levels and is essential to life. Plants breathe CO2, and as they grow and reproduce they exhale oxygen, making the earth habitable for humans. Instead of a disaster, the expected doubling of CO2 due to human activities will produce a number of benefits over the next century.

The Role of CO2. CO2 is a "greenhouse gas," one of several that partially trap solar radiation in the atmosphere. Without these gases the earth would be uninhabitable - at least by humans. CO2 occurs naturally and accounts for 2 to 4 percent of the greenhouse effect (water vapor is responsible for virtually all of the rest). Most of this CO2 is used by or stored in oceans, plants and animals. However, over the past 150 years atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased approximately 30 percent, rising from 280 to 360 parts per million (ppm).

CO2 and Global Warming. Ground-level temperature measurements indicate that the earth has warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1850, but human-generated carbon dioxide could have been only a small factor because most of the warming occurred before 1940 - preceding the vast majority of human-caused CO2 emissions. Historically, increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have often followed rather than preceded warm periods.

Plants Need CO2. Most of the earth's plant life evolved in an atmosphere of much more concentrated CO2. Indeed, some scientists have argued that, until quite recently, many plants were starving for CO2.

CO2 is essential to photosynthesis, the process by which plants use sunlight to produce carbohydrates - the material of which their roots and body consist. Increasing CO2 levels speeds the time in which plants mature and improves their growth efficiency and water use. Botanists have long realized that CO2 enhances plant growth, which is why they pump CO2 into greenhouses.

In addition, higher CO2 levels decrease water loss in plants, giving them an advantage in arid climates and during droughts. In 55 experiments conducted by U. S. Department of Agriculture research scientist Sherwood Idso, increased levels of CO2 dramatically enhanced plant growth. For example, Idso found:

* With a CO2 increase of 300 ppm, plant growth increased 31 percent under optimal water conditions and 63 percent when water was less plentiful.

* With a 600 ppm CO2 increase, plant growth increased 51 percent under optimal water conditions and an astonishing 219 percent under conditions of water shortage (see Figure II).

Also, CO2 enrichment causes plants to develop more extensive root systems with two important results. Larger root systems allow plants to exploit additional pockets of water and nutrients. This means that plants have to spend less metabolic energy to capture vital nutrients. Additionally, more extensive, active roots stimulate and enhance the activity of bacteria and other organisms that break nutrients out of the soil, which the plants can then exploit.

Farmers Need CO2. Based on nearly 800 scientific observations around the world, a doubling of CO2 from present levels would improve plant productivity on average 32 percent across species. Controlled experiments have shown that:

* Tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce average between 20 and 50 percent higher yields under elevated CO2 conditions.

* Cereal grains including rice, wheat, barley, oats and rye average between 25 and 64 percent higher yields under elevated CO2 levels.

* Food crops such as corn, sorghum, millet and sugar cane average yield increases from 10 to 55 percent at elevated CO2 levels.

* Root crops including potatoes, yams and cassava show average yield increases of 18 to 75 percent under elevated CO2 conditions.

* Legumes including peas, beans and soybeans post increased yields of between 28 and 46 percent when CO2 levels are increased.

Trees Need CO2. International research has demonstrated that trees also benefit from increased CO2 levels. In research from the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory, doubling CO2 from current levels helped orange trees accumulate 2.8 times as much biomass in the first five years of the tests and yield 10 times as many oranges in the first two years of orange production. Other U.S. studies confirm these findings. For example:

* Since 1890, high-altitude conifers in the Cascade Mountains of Washington have increased in mass approximately 60 percent from previous growth trends.

* In New England, a study of 10 tree species showed an average growth enhancement of 24 percent from 1950 to 1980, a period when CO2 levels were rising.

European studies have also demonstrated that elevated CO2 levels benefit tree growth. For example:

* Stands of Scotch pine in northern Finland have experienced growth increases of 15 to 43 percent since 1950.

* Forest growth rates in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, have increased 20 percent in the past 20 years.

Scientists have discovered no environmental factor other than the CO2 increase that could explain the higher growth rates found in forests around the world.

Ecosystems Need CO2. The earth's ecosystems should benefit from higher levels of CO2. Increased crop yields mean that humans will not have to convert more fragile forests, savannas and deserts into crop lands to feed growing populations. Wildlife will get a respite from the development of their habitats. As forests increase, many currently fragmented ecosystems will regenerate - as many already have in Europe and the eastern United States. Since trees will put on more mass under higher CO2 conditions, fewer trees will have to be cut to supply humanity's demand for timber.

Finally, many scientists contend that outside of human society the availability of food is a primary inhibitor of population growth. Therefore, as plants increase in size and number, so should animals - more herbivores due to increased edible vegetation and more omnivores and carnivores due to increased herbivore populations.

Conclusion. According to government mine safety regulations, atmospheric CO2 would have to rise as high as 5000 ppm before it posed a direct threat to human health. Since no scientist predicts a rise of this magnitude in the next century, the anticipated rise in CO2 levels should be viewed as beneficial. Even if temperatures increase slightly, life on earth will thrive.

I thought this article was interesting - and then thought this may be a good place to share, considering the demographics.

Animal, Vegetable, or E. O. Wilson

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/11/animal-vegetable-or-e-o-wilson/#more-24709

Moral of the story - don't be deluded, we need animals to survive.

Seems to have hurt Canada's momentum.

Your baseless speculation is really fucking annoying. You are the Birdy of this forum.

Hhahaah - this is the first time i've ever searched 'Birdy'.

I'm thinking i might take this one as a compliment.

Here's what i think:

In these more productive days, i'm becoming an anarchist. Where's Thorgnor?

We're all thugs, we expect value without contributing value, we design systems of governance to support our claims, and we cry out when there's an abuse of power. Well guess what? This so-called retreat to a police state, the untold truth behind media, the silent protests and the outright terrorist attacks are a society sick and tired of itself.

We're not to blame, every man is no more than a product of his times. But if you want to think it through for yourself, you might come up to the same conclusion as I, that the only path to anything in this world is to lead your individual self to it. The more time we spend expecting value without contributing value, the more the world arounds us goes to shit.

Missed you guys!

TjskJAKeJdM

Dour and gloomy has a place with me.

Love doesn't do justice for this album. This band makes my whole year. Seeing them August 3 in Detroit... and then 4 days later in Chicago! F YAH!

KLM and Lufthansa are flying test flights with no reported damage, and BA is soon to hit the skies too (for test flights). Also reported that by tomorrow, 50% of the airspace over UK/Northern Europe should be clear. Which is hopeful, as I'm due to land at Heathrow at 6.30 Tuesday morning!

That's an overwhelming amount of stuff to respond to YT.

The auto industry isn't anywhere near the clear. Those billions of dollars ensure that all levels of government will be somewhat hesitant when it comes to injecting any kind of capital into projects that threaten their investment.

I don't disagree with what you're saying above - totally agree actually - but my response was in relation to curbing urban sprawl. I'm all for the growth and development of smaller centres. Exactly why I spend many a Monday night sitting through council sessions here in Chatham.

But just trying to be realistic about what you can do now. Baby steps. It's not compromise, it's realism.

Ford & GM folks. Until these guys survive, windows of opportunity for rail service becoming a major player in rurban mobility are nil. Unfortunately.

Instead i'd say efforts would be better directed at making downtown cores of major urban centres more dynamic and liveable - green, urban architecture/city planning. People want houses and lawns because apartments don't offer them access to nature. Bring nature back to the city.

Step one of these baby steps.

Didn't anyone like the 3D Michael Jackson tribute? I did... so good i thought I could change the world for a minute or two. Maybe i got carried away on the sentiment.

I thought Taylor Swift sucked... Stevie wasn't off key. But I do think Taylor is super cute and probably will be around for a while.

Oh, and i do hope the union lets the faculty vote!