Meat recall from PC brands.

[SaggyBalls]

Fats: What a conspiracy theory.

[d_rawk]

That was really well put, too. Man, this thread is really bringing out the best of people. Seriously.

(Crap, I wrote that before you made your second post about conspiracy theories. I can't even get started on this ..)

Sally can definitely come off like that - it's important to know that she is all in favour of eating vegetation. She harps on meat because she is trying to counter a particular nutritional idea that has gained a lot of currency and doesn't get much blowback. She's blowing back, because someone has got to, but it can make it seem like she is suggesting eating meat and nothing but meat. This is far from the truth, and her personal diet is far from meat based alone. Check her out on the subject of vegetables - she is just as opinionated about the need for these and brimming with ideas about how to prepare them for optimal nutrition. She is how I learned to ferment and preserve vegetables. Sandor Katz helped, too. She calls Pollan out on the meat issue because Pollan is talking shit that doesn't add up. Fallon came by her views by the careful study of indigenous populations worldwide, their health, and their diets. Some of those indigenous populations were more vegetal than others, but she doesn't ignore the importance of dietary fats - most of them animal based. Get her rolling though, and she talks about coconuts way more than she talks about animal meat. I totally agree that she could make the point of the importance of plants and vegetation, but to her credit, she has done this extensively elsewhere. In that letter, I think she figured Pollan had already been making that point, but was discounting the rest of reality based on not having really looked into it and just accepting the 'wisdom' handed him. No need to convince someone of something that they are already convinced of, and Pollan is aready well on side about eating plants. As a public letter, yeah, it could use some expansion to make that clear. But it was a letter to Pollan only circumstantially made public.

I can't comment on 'vibrational level', but FWIW, I find that I do *terrible* on a diet with no animal flesh, I do not so well on a diet of just animal flesh, I do pretty darn well on a diet of a lot of vegetables, very very little fruit, and a little bit of meat. Other people seem to need other ratios. (And yeah, I'm cognizant of the irony that this is what Pollan recommended: "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants". And I don't doubt at all that such a diet probably works very well for him, too. But it can't empirically be extended to all of humanity based on a sample of two. There are people who thrive as frugivores, eating only fruit. There are people who thrive on only muscle and organ meats and dairy. There are people who thrive on only raw veggies and seeds. There are just as many people who would get very unwell on any of those diets but do quite well on another.) A bun or a slice of bread will make me violently sick for a week, yet meggo and other people I know could happily live off of nothing but toast. Go figure. What a wonderful world.

[SaggyBalls]

I think it's also interesting that she touches on the 'mediterranean diet' myth as well as being all about the Coconut and Palm.

There are aspects of mediterranean/island diets that, if added to our approach to food, can be real lifesavers.

Focusing on Olive oil or *just* coconut oil is akin to shooting ourselves in the foot.

I know I embraced a simpler diet and then got lazy

(cheap carbs, lots of soy, too much pizza, fast food/MSG etc)

from having access in the city.

It was ultimitely the thing that had the most impact on my well being and spurned a considerable personal crisis.

Once I got a better pH balance, bombarding myself with a poor diet gave me less and less energy to help me get out of that newly fallen into rut.

My experiences with food - feeling how much it can help or hurt first hand - have scared me quite a bit.

I entirely respect the power of food and really do think that it's a shame that my opinions about the cheapening of our food, if widely expressed, would probably fall onto deaf ears of most people - and it's also a shame that I've come to believe this.

There are few things that are as important as the fuel we put into our bodies and the environment that fuel affects.

On one hand, it takes a considerable effort to truly understand our nutritional requirements.

On the other hand, what could be more important?

[d_rawk]

lots of soy

Oh God man! Knowing what I do about your personal crisis, I hope to fuck you are off the goitrogens. I could eat spinach all day, and I feel pretty good on it. I can get away with a little bit of soy. But if I saw you putting either anywhere even close to your mouth, I'd freaking tackle you.

Not dismissing the rest, just still digesting it (ugh, that wasn't an intentional pun)

Edited July 7, 2009 by Guest
double posted. fixed.

[SaggyBalls]

whatever it wasn't.

Here's a list and I've asterisked my regular food choices (and I mean these were most of the foods I ate at least 3 times a week in some form...)

Certain foods have been identified as goitrogenic. These foods include:

Soybeans (and soybean products such as tofu)*****

Pine nuts* (pesto)

Peanuts*

Millet

Flax*

Garlic***

Asparagus**

Strawberries***

Spinach

Bamboo shoots*(not 3 times a week...more like .3-1.0)

Radishes

Horseradish**

Vegetables in the genus Brassica

Bok choy*

Broccoli**

Broccolini (Asparations)*

Brussels sprouts*

Cabbage******

Canola

Cauliflower**

Chinese cabbage

Choy sum

Collard greens

Kai-lan (Chinese broccoli)

Kale*

Kohlrabi

Mizuna

Mustard greens

Rapeseed (yu choy)

Rapini

Rutabagas

Tatsoi

Turnips**

Peaches*

Pears*

Add to that the absolutely detrimental effect that gluten can have on the body if it builds up, adding an exponent to the equation, and I'm sure that you might understand exactly how awful these otherwise incredibly healthy foods were to me.

This isn't even beginning to take into account the amount of fluoridated water I drank, the very cheap meat I ate, the beer(et al) I had, and the dairy I consumed...

I (used to) have a huge hard on for cottage cheese...with loads of frozen strawberries.

I was eating 'well' and my only saving grace was that I ate a lot of coconut oil and other healthy fats, and even then it only kept me going a bit longer.

Above all though, the soy was the absolute worst. Before I knew the dangers of soy, I knew that I was craving salt - but instead of eating real sea salt, I would spray some Bragg's (UNfermented soy sauce in a convenient atomizer) into my mouth.

It was both satisfying my cravings and making them worse.

yes i understand that sounds/seems disgusting. it was tasty. That stuff is tasty - I'll stand by that.

I was eating soy sauce out of the house daily, drinking miso soup, eating tofu, edamame (sushi lover)...

Anyhow, had I understood the importance of eating animal fats, the dangers of goitrogenic foods en masse, cheap carbs, and proper time management, I wouldn't have this advice/experience to share.

Yes I know that braggs trick was awful.

Sorry if I made you relive my moment.

[d_rawk]

Oh man, your Braggs amino acid trick was exactly what my beer trick used to be (you've seen me perform it) before I recognized my gluten-intolerance. Treating the symptoms with the thing that caused it, dealing with it the next day, starting all over again.

Haha. I laugh not because I'm insensitive to what you went through, but because it is so familiar it has to be funny or it will sting too much.

Also glad that you are already well educated on the evils of unfermented soy.

[SaggyBalls]

unfermented soy? correction: all soy. Unfermented is just especially bad, but some people can't take the yeast/life in unfermented soy especially.

but, yeah...i think i know enough to keep me afloat.

sorry for the hijack.

Edited July 8, 2009 by Guest
sorry for the hijack.

[d_rawk]

sorry for the hijack.

This thread is already well hijacked - Bouche did a good thing by warning people about the recall of PC brand sick meat. It could have ended right there, but it also conveniently made some space for discussion about heath-compromising food in general.

To bring it back around: Maple Leaf, PC, and the next one and the next one and the next one. This won't stop anytime soon. How could it? Rotten processes demand rotten results. To maintain the hijack: tofu is just as bad, it will just damage you more slowly than a stomach full of virulent mutant E. Coli.

I'm freakin' glad you got so on top of this!

I entirely respect the power of food and really do think that it's a shame that my opinions about the cheapening of our food, if widely expressed, would probably fall onto deaf ears of most people - and it's also a shame that I've come to believe this.

I guess most people don't really have to worry about it until they have crisis, so they don't worry about it until after the fact. And I can relate - I mean, I still smoke cigarettes, which I know cognitively are really freaking terrible for me. But hey, I'm just trying to get through the day and the consequences are off there somewhere in the ethereal future. For most people, food must be like that. The consequences are off there somewhere in some remote place. For you and I, the consequences are right here right now.

[SaggyBalls]

It could potentially be argued that cigarettes are more of a catalyst than cause of our ailments.

I wonder how many people that have contracted cancer supposedly 'from' cigarettes, eat processed, preserved meats filled with nitrites (you know...the stuff that's in every modern packaged meat and that they inject to lab rats to INDUCE cancer for testing) as well as other cheap foods.

Good luck not inhaling burning chemically cured happy sticks. As long as you actually enjoy them and are cutting back, they probably aren't as bad for you as you may be obsessing over.