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> >There are a multitude of reasons one may choose to either reduce or >eliminate Meat and Dairy from their diets, not the least of which is >health based. I will largely ignore the somewhat compelling issue of our >right to enslave millions of animals to a putrid existence and spend >only a little time on the tremendous burden our meat based diet places >on the environment. Both of these issues are handled well in many books, >perhaps most notably Diet for a New America by John Robbins whose life >is an interesting story unto itself. Most people would be amazed when >confronted with the phenomenal environmental cost of meat based diets. >For example, about one half of our harvested acreage goes to feed >livestock but for every 16 pounds of this grain we get only one pound >back as meat. However, that 16 pounds of grain has 21 times more >calories and eight times more protein than a pound of hamburger. >Actually during WWI Denmark was cut off from all supplies and were >forced to deal with the possibility of great food shortages. In response >they opted to stop feeding the grain to their cattle and instead use it >to feed the people. Sort of a mass vege experiment with about 3million >subjects. During the one year of these tight restrictions the mortality >rate from disease was by far the lowest in recorded history with over a >34% drop. Evidence abounds that longer healthier lives are had by >vegetarians worldwide. Furthermore, the toll on our precious drinking >water is tremendous with one pound of steak requiring 2,500 gallons of >water meaning that just 10 pounds of steak is more than my entire >household use of water for one full year. This ignores the staggering >levels of pollution from both meat and dairy propagation that result in >highly inefficient use of our resources. > First, let me say there are few people in diving I have as much respect for as JJ, so I will keep this discussion on the "high road" :-) Americans eat very badly. Their diets make them fat and prone to many maladies. While a vegetarian diet may help a very large percentage of Americans, to reverse the damage they have done, part of this would be due to the attention they suddenly have to put on what goes in their mouth, when, and how much. This same attention, could make those who had previously been nutritionally challened, much healthier on a diet which included lean red meat, chicken, fish, egg whites( in my breakfast diet I have 6 egg whites, 1 yoke) , and a measured amount of potatoe or rice or vegetables with each meal. Please read that as a "measured amount". There is an "exact" amount you should have in each meal. Attention to your nutrtional needs, whether its because you want to go vegan, or because you just want to eat smarter than you did in the past, will make you healthier. If you let this go as far as those who now have a heart condition, or hardening of the arteries, I think JJ could point you to a much healtheir vegetarian diet, to reverse the years of abuse you have already subjected your body to. If you are "healthy"---i.e., your med checkup shows good cholesterol levels and your stress test is good, and you have no gastro intestinal problems or other ailments, BUT, you are 30 to 40 percent bodyfat, you have two options. JJ's way, or Terry's way. My "arguement for including lean meat in your diet, is because it will be better at healing your muscles after an intense workout. Most vegetarians who avoid meat, tend to catabolize ( destroy) muscle tissue. This is one reason many vegan runners have such emaciated bodies, particularly their upper bodies----and certainly the fact they are chronic overtrainers, doesn't help end the catobolic destruction of muscle tissue. As I have said in other posts, if you have too much fat, and you want to start losing it, you want to add more muscle tissue to your body, because it will "use" many more calories, of the food you eat every day. This will give you a higher metabolic rate, and you will constantly be burning more calories, than your "evil twin", who did no work to grow additional muscle tissue. Further, as you begin to develop larger muscles ( legs, lats, chest, arms, shoulders, back, stomach, etc) , each time you train them hard at the gym, they will use up their glycogen stores ( glycogen is how your body stores carbs for use by muscles---glycogen is released immediately as sugar to power your muscle cells, as it is needed) When you use up the glycogen stores, your body will have a demand for more carbohydrate use, from the food you eat----less chance the food you eat will turn to fat. And, if you create stong legs, perhaps get into cycling, with the power you have created by building these muscles, you can generate an enormous amount of power in an hour or two----I can burn over 2000 calories in an hour on my bike----if I had a "weaker" evil twin, who did no weight training, and little bike riding, when he tried to ride hard for an hour, he'd be lucky to burn 500 calories. This is a big part of the issue---your diet can help make you stronger, and that can help you burn more fat off. >But I digress. We were focused on fitness itself in a more narrowly >defined scope. > >Dan Volker writes>>> >I would not argue that a vegetarian diet can be healthier for a "sick" >person--one with heart disease or other ailment, than a meat eating >diet. >>> >JJ >So, it is OK or perhaps advisable for a "sick" person with heart disease >etc. to treat their malady (almost certainly the result of their meat >based diet in the first place) with a vegetarian diet but not wise to >take clearly beneficial, preventative measures? > If you have a sore throat--strep, take penicillan. If you are healthy, DO NOT TAKE PENICILLAN! It will decrease your level of fitness and health, if you have no infections that require an antibiotic. As for the need to eat and train toward more elite status, I >am fine with that. But to claim this is not possible with a vegetarian >diet is inaccurate. Actually, vegetarians and even your "stinky" Vegans >do quite well in fitness studies, typically outstripping the meat eating >competition. While it is true that a limited portion of high athletes >practice vege diets this is more a reflection of their limited numbers >in the population and the relatively ignorant nutritional base in >western medicine. There is HUGE money in pro sports. Elite athletes try EVERY nutritional aid they can find, in the quest to out compete others. Someone like Terry Giles, gets paid over $20,000 a piece, by pro athletes, and over $5000 each for top ameteur athletes who want custom diets and training plans. He gets PAID the big bucks, because NO ONE in the fitness industry can match his results. In the last Masters Olympia, he created diets and training plans for 2 of the 3 top finishers---this has never been done before by any trainer or nutritionist....the athletes were Vince Taylor 1st place, and James Roberts of Sweden, 3rd place. If Terry "thought" there was ANY chance a vegan diet would help one of his athletes win at their sport, he would be a fool to withhold the dietary advantage---he is paid by results. He has experiemnted on top athletes with custom diets for over 20 years, and no one does this as well. He will NOT even train a vegan bodybuilder, becuase it is too much of a liability---he does not have time to train people he thinks have no shot at winning---he is picky about who he will consider training, since he has far more people to train than he needs. I can already hear people out on the list saying, " bodybuilders---they are on steroids...that's why they are big--not the diet.." The reality is, of course they are on steroids, as a a huge percentage of other pro sport athletes, from football to even golf. The bodybuilder on steroids has even a LARGER need for perfect nutrition than you guys do. The steroids work by allowing MORE protein to be metabolised, and to stay in their system---this increases the ability of the body to heal the tears to the muscle tissue, that are essential to making them stronger by healing thicker than before. And the steroids allow more glucose tolerance. Personally, unless I stood to make several million dollars ( or mabe even a lot more) , I would NOT use steroids, due to the carcinogenic issue they can raise, as well as the damage to liver and kidney. If you were being paid millions to be a pro---and all your competition was recovering better than you thanks to steroids---you might become a butthead yourself and use steroids to keep the dollars flowing in. Ameteur athletes have no such excuse, and the weekend warriors amongs us would be incredibly stupid to use them. Hopefully I have stressed this enough so that everyone knows that both I and Terry are against steroids--but Terry does train pros who use them, and the diets he provides them with must reflect their greater nutrtional needs. > >How about some studies to back up my assertions>> >Yale University ran a series of tests to compare the stamina and >strength of meat eaters and vegetarians with three groups: meat-eating >athletes, vegetarian athletes, and sedentary vegetarians. > >"of the three groups compared, the flesh eaters showed far less >endurance than the vegetarians even when the latter were leading a >sedentary life." Cmon JJ, we both know a bogus meat eating diet--what most people have, will not promote good performance. And it would be easy to find vegans who ate so badly, that their horribly catabolized muscle tissue would allow them no substantial power output or endurance. Studies like this prove whatever the reseacher wants to prove. >Back to the athletes > You write>>>> >How many world class athletes do you think you >can convince to destroy their elite level performance, by the inferior >nutrition of a vegetarian diet. > > >Have you heard of Dave Scott considered by some to be one of the >greatest triatheletes in the world? He won Hawaiis Ironman a record >four times, including three years in a row. To my knowledge nobody else >has won it more than one time. During those three successive years he >broke his own worlds record in the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile cycle, and >26.2 mile run. He calls the idea that people, and especially athletes, >need animal protein a "ridiculous fallacy". I have heard of him, in fact, he's one of the people Terry Giles has traied---unfortunately, Terry never talked to him about diet ( I asked him) but was under the impression that Dave did eat fish.... But YES, you can make it big with superior genetics---and clearly Dave did a great job of picking his parents well, and training hard to develop himself. But the overwhelming numbers of top pros will not consider a vegan diet. The Tour de France riders are virtually all eating red meat---just imagine trying to get the protein and nutrient density it would take to be a vegetarian in the Tour de France---you need to consume over 6000 calories per day---and even with this, by tour end, most riders are 10 to 20 pounds lighter at the end than they went in to it. And can you imagine trying to get this level of protein from beans----well, maybe this would help you to break away from the pack, with the constant methane explosions in your wake, the peloton would probably let you go :-) .. . . > >Dan Volker writes>>> >I bet there is an amazingly high correlation between becoming a vegan >and >becoming gay---are you light on your feet ??? >>> I just needed to show that I can be as obnoxoius as any on the list ;-) >Food for thought. > >Best wishes, happy eating, and great diving, >JJ Sorry again for my more ridiculous comments--- I got pissed at the guy I was responding to---I've taken a lot of my time to try to help, and did not enjoy being called a moron. Now that I've called him a smelly fag, he can call me a moron, and I'll deserve it :-) No more vegan discussions for me, thank you very much. Regards, Dan Volker -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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