Freethought & Rationalism Archive

DRFseven · 04-30-2002, 10:49 AM

Moral Implications of The China Study:

It has been suggested that dietary considerations, since they impact health, have moral importance, and, thus, that dietary choices are a moral issue; this stems from the teleological view that nature "wants" us to live. Since that statement under a different topic in MF&P, there has been much discussion and argument about the pros and cons of meat-eating versus vegetarian diet. There have also been accusations and questioning of sources as to bias and validity.

Let's put an end to this and go to "the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease" (The New York Times), <a href="http://www.nutrition.cornell.edu/chinaproject/" target="_blank"> The China Study</a>. This study was <a href="http://www.nutrition.cornell.edu/chinaproject/funding.html" target="_blank">funded by</a> The US National Cancer Institute and The American Institute for Cancer Research and was conducted by Cornell University, the University of Oxford, and The Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, along with colleagues in China, the U.S., England, Canada, and France.

Three factors influenced the instigation of The China Study: 1. The association of high cancer rate with diets of rich Western diets (high meat/low fiber); 2. Migrants moving from low-cancer-risk countries assumed the same high-cancer risk when they moved to high-cancer-risk countries; 3. During the Vietnam war, 70% of young American soldiers were found to have the high blood lipids associated with heart disease, while virtually none of the Vietnamese soldiers showed elevated levels.

The results of this study are bad news for meat-eaters concerned with lifelong healthy nutrition. Basically, the more dietary meat the unhealthier and greater the risk for degenerative disease, and the more plant material, the healthier. Even small amounts of meat are correlated with health risk many times the rate of that of non-meat eaters; to significantly lower the health risk, meat-consumption needs to be kept to a very small amount which can be incorporated into the diet once or twice a month, or, when used on a frequent basis, only "tidbits" for flavoring.

Based on this evidence the study was begun and the recent positions of the ADA and the FDA reflect these findings. According to Professor T. Colin Campbell, Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY., "...a substantial change in American dietary patterns from animal based foods to plant based foods must occur for there to be a substantial change in disease incidence patterns." Earlier this month, <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/737587.asp#BODY" target="_blank">headlines on MSNBC.com</a> stated, "Eating meat tied to cancer risk", and advised no more than 3 ounces per day based on studies conducted by The American Institute for Cancer Research as a result of medical findings from The China Study. The three ounce figure, though it is a very conservative one (a greater restriction on meat is indicated for substantial health benefit), is probably not realistic for the American public in the near future.

If it is, indeed, thought to be immoral to exist on an unhealthy diet, I suspect that during the next few years many Americans will rethink the morality aspect and decide that unhealthy eating is not so immoral after all. But I also suspect that plants and vegetarianism will increasingly come to form the basis our diets as time goes on.

Personally, I have no moral qualms about eating meat because it doesn't seem morally wrong to me. I don't eat much meat, but I do eat it and I at least have the guts to admit that I eat it because I enjoy it, and I don't go posturing about a mythologized superiority of meat diets. The way we have learned to eat meat here in the U.S. (and some other places) is such an unhealthy way to eat that almost ANY diet without meat would be better; this is why it's ridiculous to talk about optimum health in conjunction with a typical meat diet. And talking about optimum health, anyway, is ridiculous in individuals who consume alcohol, coffee, and soft drinks, salt, eat refined flours, consume rich desserts, don't eat lots of raw, dark green leafy vegetables, endure typical mental stress, expose themselves to environmental toxins, sit at desks all day, don't spend much of their time in virorous phyical activity, and put their lives in danger in traffic. Now who does all that? Most of us do SOME of it, but hardly anyone lives their lives to the nth degree of healthiness, so I think we had better drop the charade of linking healthy diet to morality, lest those of us who want to be "optimally" healthy are forced to live in an isolated health bubble. And let's also drop the "vegetarian diets are unhealthy" angle; it's a dead relic of a bygone era. As a whole, all other factors being equal, populations are shown to be healthier and live longer, the LESS meat they eat, with vegans and vegetarians coming in healthiest of all.

SmashingIdols · 04-30-2002, 12:14 PM

Sorry to disagree with a few points you have made:

A. While it is entirely true that the overall diet of the Chinese population has taken a turn for the worst, one cannot assume that they previously consumed no meat products. The key here is that the meat consumption rates increased. They did not move from zero to the clearly dangerous levels they are now. Rather they were previously at sustainable and more healthful levels.

B. The most important part of this entire study is completely passed by: the comsumption rates increased due to an overall urbanization of China - more people giving up local and sustenance farming to move to cities. City diet is a diet of economics, not a matter of what you can personally grow. Money becomes the factor for both the people consuming and the people producing.

C. Your end statement draws a conclusion that has not been tested, certainly not with the diet of the Chinese (the subject of the study):

Quote:

vegans and vegetarians coming in healthiest of all.

This was not part of the study. It is implied, however there may be thresholds at either end of the diet spectrum.

DRFseven · 04-30-2002, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Smashing: While it is entirely true that the overall diet of the Chinese population has taken a turn for the worst, one cannot assume that they previously consumed no meat products. The key here is that the meat consumption rates increased. They did not move from zero to the clearly dangerous levels they are now. Rather they were previously at sustainable and more healthful levels.

One needn't assume anything; the details are in the study; did you read it? The reason China was chosen was because the epidemiological transition could be clearly tracked. The meat consumption ranged from 0-20% of total diet; this means that in some areas they ate NO meat, while in the heaviest meat-eating areas, meat comprised 20% of total dietary intake, still very low compared to U.S. standards, which in some cases is 80%.

Quote:

The most important part of this entire study is completely passed by: the comsumption rates increased due to an overall urbanization of China - more people giving up local and sustenance farming to move to cities. City diet is a diet of economics, not a matter of what you can personally grow. Money becomes the factor for both the people consuming and the people producing.

The reason for eating meat is not important; what was important was the positive correlation between meat consumption and degenerative disease. When meat consumption goes up, disease goes up and longivity goes down.

Quote:

Your end statement draws a conclusion that has not been tested, certainly not with the diet of the Chinese (the subject of the study):

Certainly it has! Please note: "These 1983-84 diet and lifestyle data included the 1973-75 mortality rates for about 4 dozen different kinds of cancers and other diseases. " And, consequently, "[these] data were combined with new mortality data for 1986-88, using the most recent disease classification scheme (International Classification of Disease, Edition 9)." It was this study that prompted the <a href="http://www.eatright.org/adap1197.html" target="_blank"> American Dietetic Association's position statement </a>on vegetarian diets, which includes the following information:

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Studies indicate that vegetarians often have lower morbidity (1) and mortality (2) rates from several chronic degenerative diseases than do nonvegetarians.

and...

Quote:

Vegetarian Diets -- Position of ADA

J Am Diet Assoc. 1997;97:1317-1321.

Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases and conditions, including obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer. Vegetarian diets, like all diets, need to be planned appropriately to be nutritionally adequate.

POSITION STATEMENT
It is the position of The American Dietetic Association (ADA) that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.

Vegetarianism in Perspective

The eating patterns of vegetarians vary considerably. The lacto-ovo-vegetarian eating pattern is based on grains, vegetables, fruits, legumes, seeds, nuts, dairy products, and eggs, and excludes meat, fish, and fowl. The vegan, or total vegetarian, eating pattern is similar to the lacto-ovo-vegetarian pattern except for the additional exclusion of eggs, dairy, and other animal products. Even within these patterns, considerable variation may exist in the extent to which animal products are avoided. Therefore, individual assessment is required to accurately evaluate the nutritional quality of a vegetarian's dietary intake.

Studies indicate that vegetarians often have lower morbidity (1) and mortality (2) rates from several chronic degenerative diseases than do nonvegetarians. Although nondietary factors, including physical activity and abstinence from smoking and alcohol, may play a role, diet is clearly a contributing factor.

In addition to the health advantages, other considerations that may lead a person to adopt a vegetarian diet pattern include concern for the environment, ecology, and world hunger issues. Vegetarians also cite economic reasons, ethical considerations, and religious beliefs as their reasons for following this type of diet pattern. Consumer demand for vegetarian options has resulted in increasing numbers of foodservices that offer vegetarian options. Presently, most university foodservices offer vegetarian options.

Health Implications of Vegetarianism

Vegetarian diets low in fat or saturated fat have been used successfully as part of comprehensive health programs to reverse severe coronary artery disease (3,4). Vegetarian diets offer disease protection benefits because of their lower saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein content and often higher concentration of folate (which reduces serum homocysteine levels) (5), antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, carotenoids, and phytochemicals (6). Not only is mortality from coronary artery disease lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians (7), but vegetarian diets have also been successful in arresting coronary artery disease (8,9). Total serum cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels are usually lower in vegetarians, but high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride levels vary depending on the type of vegetarian diet followed (10).

Vegetarians tend to have a lower incidence of hypertension than nonvegetarians (11). This effect appears to be independent of both body weight and sodium intake. Type 2 diabetes mellitus is much less likely to be a cause of death in vegetarians than nonvegetarians, perhaps because of their higher intake of complex carbohydrates and lower body mass index (12).

Incidence of lung and colorectal cancer is lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians (2,13). Reduced colorectal cancer risk is associated with increased consumption of fiber, vegetables, and fruit (14,15). The environment of the colon differs notably in vegetarians compared with nonvegetarians in ways that could favorably affect colon cancer risk (16,17). Lower breast cancer rates have not been observed in Western vegetarians, but cross-cultural data indicate that breast cancer rates are lower in populations that consume plant-based diets (18). The lower estrogen levels in vegetarian women may be protective (19).

A well-planned vegetarian diet may be useful in the prevention and treatment of renal disease. Studies using human being and animal models suggest that some plant proteins may increase survival rates and decrease proteinuria, glomerular filtration rate, renal blood flow, and histologic renal damage compared with a nonvegetarian diet (20,21).

If you want to know how the mortality rate for heart disease (the number one killer disease of Americans) compares between vegetarians and non-vegetarians, go to <a href="http://www.heartinfo.org/search/display.asp?Id=981&header=T_nut.gif&caller=459" target="_blank">HeartInfo.com</a>, an investigatory group set up by the ADA, which states,

Quote:

According to the Messinas, several research studies show that vegetarians have approximately half the risk of death from ischemic heart disease compared to the general population. The lower saturated fat and cholesterol content of a vegetarian diet is believed to be one of the primary reasons for the decreased incidence of CVD in the populations studied.

The point in citing this study was to show that with vegetarians coming though with flying colors in the largest, most respected and farthest-reaching dietary health study ever undertaken in the world, there is simply no basis for the ridiculous contentions of certain meat-eaters who claim that vegetarian diets are "unhealthy." I'm doing research right now for a cycling group that is thinking of changing to Lance Armstrong's vegetarian training diet, which was originally successful in a cancer-treatment program and seems to have worked out OK for Lance. In addition, my 52-year-old vegetarian husband (who has been vegetarian for 30 years) is in such good physical shape from long-distance cycling that I wish one of the nay-sayers would challenge HIM to a bicycle race and then tell him his diet was inadequate or unhealthy. People need to grow up, face the facts, and stop whining about vegetarian diets. You like meat? Eat it; that's what I do.

[ April 30, 2002: Message edited by: DRFseven ]</p>

SmashingIdols · 04-30-2002, 09:02 PM

I did read it, and you cannot say that just because the ADA drew the conclusion that they did, and changed appropriately, that the study included that exact information. It did not. Read it again. It implied this, but never actually gathered this particular data.

The assertion that the meat consumption was 0-20% was based upon averaging, and there is no way to exactly measure it nor the health of the people that followed these diets. We do in fact know they were healthier. That's about it. Nobody actually followed individuals from the farm to the city, tracking their health. Nobody knows whether the people who had zero meat consumption were very healthy - they could have been starving like vegetarians in Ethiopia. It is an unknown. China was (and still is) a land of great economic disparity. Furthermore, the health records are much better now - we have almost no idea of what the leading causes of death were in rural China (probably politics). We can certainly gather that the causes of death due to coronary disease have risen (yes, I agree, due to large meat consumption), however we do not know if it is really worse than whatever they were dying of before (starvation, malnutrition, etc.).

I do not think that Vegetarian diets are necessarily unhealthy - as the ADA says there are many patterns within Vegetarian/Vegan that include animal products, and they must be evaluated individually for nutritional completeness.

The money point was brought up because it is perhaps the most salient but ignored point of the Chinese transition to meat - economics make a lousy dietician, yet without addressing this root cause we may never head off the disaster. China will not change by any other means. Neither will we.

Last but not least, it has been pointed out to myself that you cannot bring personal experiences onto the web - they are unprovable. According to this mindset, the only information allowable is that which is published (but you cannot say you are the person who is published, either). You cannot prove who you are, what you say is true, or that you are anything other than a brain in a jar. Any second they could come jumping out of the woodwork and accuse you of lying about everything..Oh, nevermind - you are speaking in behalf of vegetarianism, so carry on...

So, why don't you go vegan? Sounds like you are convinced.. sounds like you are endorsing it for other people... why not? What holds you back?

DRFseven · 05-02-2002, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Smashing: I did read it, and you cannot say that just because the ADA drew the conclusion that they did, and changed appropriately, that the study included that exact information. It did not. Read it again. It implied this, but never actually gathered this particular data.

What are you talking about? It certainly did gather the data. In every county, the higher the meat consumption, the higher the mortality and morbidity by disease rate, which is what we are concerned about. Again, the leading health problem in the U.S. is cardiac disease, followed by cancer and diabetes-related problems. Over half of all adults here are now obese with the concomitant problems of hypertension and high blood lipids. Arterial cholesterol buildup is being seen in ten-year-old children. The message for us is that the more meat we can replace with plant material, the better off we are. According to T. C. Campbell, Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University, in a presentation called<a href="http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Nov98/thermogenesis_paper.html" target="_blank"> "Interpretation of Data from Rural China"</a>:

Quote:

Total�and LDL cholesterol�.were positively associated with animal protein containing diets but inversely with plant protein containing diets (Table 6). Moreover, the higher was the intake of foods of plant matter (as indicated by the fiber and legume associations), the lower was the concentration of plasma cholesterol. These findings appear to be quite remarkable because only small intakes of animal based foods were associated with significant increases in plasma cholesterol concentration and chronic degenerative diseases. The significance of this observation is drawn from the facts that 1) animal based foods comprised only 0-20% of total protein intake and 2) plasma cholesterol concentrations were already low by Western standards.

In short, disease rates were significantly associated within a range of dietary plant food composition that suggested an absence of a disease prevention threshold. That is, the closer a diet is to an all-plant foods diet, the greater will be the reduction in the rates of these diseases.

Quote:

Smashing: The assertion that the meat consumption was 0-20% was based upon averaging, and there is no way to exactly measure it nor the health of the people that followed these diets. We do in fact know they were healthier. That's about it. Nobody actually followed individuals from the farm to the city, tracking their health.

You've gotten the wrong idea about the study. Hardly anyone in the study moved; from 90-94% of the subjects remained in the county in which they were born, which is one of the characteristics of the rural Chinese people that attracted the researchers to rural China for the study. Another characteristic was that they tended to eat the same diet over a lifetime. The total average protein from animal sources was 7%; the U.S. consumes ten times that amount per capita.

Quote:

I do not think that Vegetarian diets are necessarily unhealthy - as the ADA says there are many patterns within Vegetarian/Vegan that include animal products, and they must be evaluated individually for nutritional completeness.

As would ANY diet, vegetarian or not. We already know that half American adults are obese; what do you think their personal health charts look like? This is what I'm talking about. The majority of meat-eaters for sure aren't "optimally" healthy and will be dropping like flies when they hit the age of 50, so they have no business pointing fingers at vegetarian diets and claiming them unhealthy.

Quote:

The money point was brought up because it is perhaps the most salient but ignored point of the Chinese transition to meat - economics make a lousy dietician, yet without addressing this root cause we may never head off the disaster. China will not change by any other means. Neither will we.

Though this is interesting and of concern, it is unrelated to how the China Study addresses Western dietary and lifestyle habits. It will take a while, and people will always eat some meat, but dietary habits are going to be revolutionized in the same way that smoking habits were. In the 50s and 60s, people could never imagine that such a turnaround would occur, but the turnaround has been astonishing, with the entire demographics of smoking having changed. Another thing we couldn't have imagined changing like it has was casual sex! Things change, new information gets out, people get over it and adjust.

Quote:

Last but not least, it has been pointed out to myself that you cannot bring personal experiences onto the web - they are unprovable. According to this mindset, the only information allowable is that which is published (but you cannot say you are the person who is published, either). You cannot prove who you are, what you say is true, or that you are anything other than a brain in a jar. Any second they could come jumping out of the woodwork and accuse you of lying about everything..Oh, nevermind - you are speaking in behalf of vegetarianism, so carry on...

I offered personal information as a means of sharing why I'm so tired of hearing erroneous bull about vegetarian diets bandied about. Of course you don't have to believe it, but, nevertheless, it is true. I was a vegetarian for five years; my husband has been vegetarian for thirty years, we've raised two children on a predominently vegetarian diet, and I now have a young granddaughter who hardly eats meat. All else being equal, people in our society (or anywhere with adequate nutritional access) do fine on a vegetarian diet, and suffer no ill effects at all; quite the opposite. So I offered that information to let you know where I'm coming from and why I'm sick of the bull.

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So, why don't you go vegan? Sounds like you are convinced.. sounds like you are endorsing it for other people... why not? What holds you back?

I've said it before; I'll say it again. I like eating meat sometimes. It's a cultural/comfort thing. Mostly, the small amount of meat I eat is fish, but I like being able to eat turkey on Thanksgiving. I like being able to join my huge extended family on Christmas morning in our traditional brunch of scrambled eggs, grits, blueberry muffins and sausage links. I loved taking my little granddaughter, at fourteen months, for her first hotdog and hot fudge sundae at Sonic Burger. My husband can't do these things because he can no longer digest meat (and, believe me, you don't wanna eat meat when you have no intestinal flora to digest it; I found out the hard way and so has he), though he still barbecues the best steaks and chicken around for our guests.

Actually, I probably will go back to a real vegetarian diet, now that I'm over 50. My father, a big meat-and-potatoes man, died in his fifties with his third heart attack, and it runs in my mother's side, too. �I have no desire to check out any time soon; my husband would get lonely living to 100 alone.

Edited to add that I had to take the actual cholesterol reading numbers out of the quote under the heading, "Interpretation of Data from Rural China" in order to avoid the UBB error that wouldn't allow me to post this response (it was the greater-than and less-than signs, which I don't dare enter or it probably won't let me post this edit).

[ May 02, 2002: Message edited by: DRFseven ]</p>

SmashingIdols · 05-02-2002, 10:05 AM

Quote:

I've said it before; I'll say it again. I like eating meat sometimes. It's a cultural/comfort thing. Mostly, the small amount of meat I eat is fish, but I like being able to eat turkey on Thanksgiving. I like being able to join my huge extended family on Christmas morning in our traditional brunch of scrambled eggs, grits, blueberry muffins and sausage links. I loved taking my little granddaughter, at fourteen months, for her first hotdog and hot fudge sundae at Sonic Burger. My husband can't do these things because he can no longer digest meat (and, believe me, you don't wanna eat meat when you have no intestinal flora to digest it; I found out the hard way and so has he), though he still barbecues the best steaks and chicken around for our guests.

The most ironic thing about this conversation is that my diet IS far more vegetarian than that you state above - I allow myself a small quantity of fish once a week, real cream in my coffee, and an occasional slice of cheese (organic hormone free). I have eaten beef 4 times since my return to omnivorey (is that a word?), and would never even dream of eating pork (the most environmentally damaging of all food sources) or any poultry (the cruelest, also the largest consumer of antibiotics, and leader in aquatic food chain destruction).

My contention at the start was with the statement that the Vegetarian and Vegan groups within any society were the healthiest. Paste that sentence directly above what I said, I didn't because it was the last thing you said from the study. It is wild conjecture, and paints a picture that anybody eating a Vegetarian Diet is healthier than anybody not. We both know that is untrue - and unverified.

The truth is this - the healthiest population group in any society are those disease free, unimpaired, non-genetically predisposed to health problems, which are practising the combination of a balanced diet (could be veg), proper caloric intake, vigorous exercise, and positive self-image.

Diet is not the only factor here. It is one factor. You are right about this - it is one that could be changed to something better by virtually every individual myself included. That change alone would not make us healthier than everybody else.

And once again, it is not possible under current global socio-economic structures for everybody to do so.

EDITED SPELLING - WE NEED A PREVIEW CAPABILITY!

[ May 02, 2002: Message edited by: SmashingIdols ]</p>

DRFseven · 05-02-2002, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Smashing: My contention at the start was with the statement that the Vegetarian and Vegan groups within any society were the healthiest. Paste that sentence directly above what I said, I didn't because it was the last thing you said from the study. It is wild conjecture, and paints a picture that anybody eating a Vegetarian Diet is healthier than anybody not. We both know that is untrue - and unverified.

1. I didn't say "any society"; I said the U.S., where the #1 cause of death is heart disease and where half the population is overweight with high blood cholesterol. The China Study has spawned the long-overdue endorsement of vegetarianism by the ADA and the American Cancer Institute.

2. I said "all else being equal", which means assuming adequate access to all necessary nutrients. This does not mean that "anybody" eating either diet is automatically healthier.

3. You know, as well as I do, that most meat-eaters in this country eat all kinds of meats, especially beef, and lots of it, including nitrate-preserved meats on a daily basis. There is no basis from which to say that vegetarian diets are unhealthier than this extremely unhealthy but typical American diet. As I pointed out earlier, Campbell, the head nutrition honcho of the Cornell-China study, said, there is no discernable threshhold at either end; the less meat the freer from "affluent" diseases (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, etc.).

Quote:

The truth is this - the healthiest population group in any society are those disease free, unimpaired, non-genetically predisposed to health problems, which are practising the combination of a balanced diet (could be veg), proper caloric intake, vigorous exercise, and positive self-image.

Yes, exactly, and what percentage of Americans do you think practice this? Not many!

Quote:

Diet is not the only factor here. It is one factor. You are right about this - it is one that could be changed to something better by virtually every individual myself included. That change alone would not make us healthier than everybody else.

If the majority of Americans changed their diet and exercise habits, they'd be a healthier group. If they changed only exercise, they'd be healthier. If they changed only diet, they'd be healthier. If this same majority substituted plant materials for meat, they'd be a healthier group.

SmashingIdols · 05-02-2002, 03:39 PM

Even in the US I think it would be hard to say that the Vegetarian and Vegan communities are the healthiest. That is just conjecture. I will stand by my statements - I know it is true in my hometown.

Define health: Do you mean physical fitness? The healthiest is then the most athletic - a small number of whom are vegetarian. How many pro-athletes are actually vegan? I know Dave Scott is heavily reliant upon Soy, which is a risk I would rather not take (especially after a high intake of soy for over a decade of my life).

The envelope of human life is not determined by diet - quality of said life can be greatly enhanced by good diet and exercise, but just doing these things does not gaurantee it. It is the roll of the genetic dice. You could be a happy vegan and live to be 100 - or you can suffer from aging that incapacitates you by 75.

Readers might want to go to local vegetarian potlucks in their communities and have a look around. Then they could ask the question themselves "Are these the healthiest people I have seen, as stated above?" This was often pointed out to us at tabling events by the "fitness" crowd.

I know this for certain - eating the occasional animal products that I do, combined with the physical exercise I do (6 days a week, alternating groups of muscles and cardiovascular) I am far healthier than my vegan friends. The fattest I ever got in my life was as a vegan - twelve years worth. It was progressive, and finally ended with multiple health problems, including increased food allergies, depression, weight, gall bladder removal after rupture (year 7), feeling exhausted, brittle nails, muscle loss, skin problems, the list goes on. I will not go back. I feel great now. Is my cholesterol a little higher? Yes, but so what. So is my quality of life.

Last of all, I guess it was the title that fired me up. Everybody tries to attatch some moral agenda to what we eat.

Morality is societal code - and in our soceity it is both moral and ethical to eat animal products. It would be far less moral to force people to be vegetarian, which is the only way this diet will become the world standard.

droolian · 05-02-2002, 10:45 PM

Results from the China Project: When their geographic distributions were sought, it was found that the degenerative diseases tended to cluster in the more urbanized, industrialized counties while the communicable diseases were primarily found in the more agricultural counties. The 'dietary and lifestyle' factors chiefly associated with the 'degenerative disease' counties included metabolic and dietary factors which characterize diets richer in animal products and higher in total fat.

These findings suggested that only small additions of animal based foods to an otherwise all plant based diet could elevate blood cholesterol (both total and LDL), thence to elevate the risk for the chronic degenerative diseases.

Even small amounts of meat can contribute to degenerative disease. Sounds like the American idea of a “balanced diet” goes out of the park with a loud crack.

Quote:

DRFseven: And talking about optimum health, anyway, is ridiculous in individuals who consume alcohol, coffee, and soft drinks, salt, eat refined flours, consume rich desserts, don't eat lots of raw, dark green leafy vegetables, endure typical mental stress, expose themselves to environmental toxins, sit at desks all day, don't spend much of their time in virorous phyical activity, and put their lives in danger in traffic.

Well said. I agree with this, and I think people can rely too heavily on just eating junk food. I play some sports and stuff, but I should do more. But here’s an interesting quote from Diet for a New America regarding a Yale study showing that even sedentary vegetarians do better.

At Yale, Professor Irving Fisher designed a series of tests to compare the stamina and strength of
meat-eaters against that of vegetarians. He selected men from three groups: meat-eating
athletes, vegetarian athletes, and vegetarian sedentary subjects. Fisher reported the results of his
study in the Yale Medical Journal. His findings do not seem to lend a great deal of credibility to the
popular prejudices that hold meat to be a builder of strength.

"Of the three groups compared, the... flesh-eaters showed far less endurance than the
abstainers (vegetarians), even when the latter were leading a sedentary life."

Overall, the average score of the vegetarians was over double the average score of the
meat-eaters, even though half of the vegetarians were sedentary people, while all of the
meat-eaters tested were athletes.

"A comparable study was done by Dr. J. Ioteyko of the Academie de Medicine of Paris. Dr.
Ioteyko compared the endurance of vegetarians and meat-eaters from all walks of life in a variety
of tests. The vegetarians averaged two to three times more stamina than the meat-eaters. Even
more remarkably, they took only one-fifth the time to recover from exhaustion compared to their
meat-eating rivals.

It’s my opinion that eating meat is wrong for many reasons. If it’s not about harming animals, which many would disagree with as immoral, then it’s about damaging our own bodies and the environment for future generations.

Professor David Pimentel on environmental sustainability: Reducing demand can be achieved by eating more efficiently on the food chain. Diet matters: environmental sustainability (ES) can be brought about by reducing feeding inefficiencies, such as those existing in producing grain-fed livestock, and encouraging more efficient diets, such as plant-based ones.

The China Project is amazing. Here’s some quotes from implications of:
Health care costs could be dramatically reduced were citizens to opt for low-fat plant based diets. Rates of high cost chronic degenerative diseases not only would be reduced, but also increasing evidence suggests that these same diseases may be ameliorated or even cured by this same diet.

[ May 02, 2002: Message edited by: droolian ]</p>

SmashingIdols · 05-03-2002, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Overall, the average score of the vegetarians was over double the average score of the meat-eaters, even though half of the vegetarians were sedentary people, while all of the meat-eaters tested were athletes

This is the most propagandist lie I have ever heard in my life. Even when I was vegan we tried to stop people from spreading this rubbish.

You are basically saying that I could take a world champion marathon runner and they would not have the endurance of a sedentary vegetarian, as an example.

Even forgetting about world champion athletes, let's hit closer to home. You are saying that some fat vegan [I know several, so much for that other myth] who sits at his desk all day, will have better endurance and strength [or either] than a meat-eater [let's just say moderate < = 16oz of animal flesh per week] who is an active mountain biker [common sport here in Colorado] or climber. The other one is your average Joe Triathelete [or Jane, like my wife] who has an incredibly high endurance and strength quotia, is not vegetarian or vegan, will not perform as well as a sedentary vegetarian or vegan.

Does anybody else see something wrong with these statements?

You will never win converts if you can't examine the statements put forth by the veg community for feasability.

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04-30-2002, 10:49 AM	#1
DRFseven Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Posts: 2,322	Moral Implications of The China Study: Moral Implications of The China Study: It has been suggested that dietary considerations, since they impact health, have moral importance, and, thus, that dietary choices are a moral issue; this stems from the teleological view that nature "wants" us to live. Since that statement under a different topic in MF&P, there has been much discussion and argument about the pros and cons of meat-eating versus vegetarian diet. There have also been accusations and questioning of sources as to bias and validity. Let's put an end to this and go to "the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease" (The New York Times), <a href="http://www.nutrition.cornell.edu/chinaproject/" target="_blank"> The China Study</a>. This study was <a href="http://www.nutrition.cornell.edu/chinaproject/funding.html" target="_blank">funded by</a> The US National Cancer Institute and The American Institute for Cancer Research and was conducted by Cornell University, the University of Oxford, and The Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, along with colleagues in China, the U.S., England, Canada, and France. Three factors influenced the instigation of The China Study: 1. The association of high cancer rate with diets of rich Western diets (high meat/low fiber); 2. Migrants moving from low-cancer-risk countries assumed the same high-cancer risk when they moved to high-cancer-risk countries; 3. During the Vietnam war, 70% of young American soldiers were found to have the high blood lipids associated with heart disease, while virtually none of the Vietnamese soldiers showed elevated levels. The results of this study are bad news for meat-eaters concerned with lifelong healthy nutrition. Basically, the more dietary meat the unhealthier and greater the risk for degenerative disease, and the more plant material, the healthier. Even small amounts of meat are correlated with health risk many times the rate of that of non-meat eaters; to significantly lower the health risk, meat-consumption needs to be kept to a very small amount which can be incorporated into the diet once or twice a month, or, when used on a frequent basis, only "tidbits" for flavoring. Based on this evidence the study was begun and the recent positions of the ADA and the FDA reflect these findings. According to Professor T. Colin Campbell, Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY., "...a substantial change in American dietary patterns from animal based foods to plant based foods must occur for there to be a substantial change in disease incidence patterns." Earlier this month, <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/737587.asp#BODY" target="_blank">headlines on MSNBC.com</a> stated, "Eating meat tied to cancer risk", and advised no more than 3 ounces per day based on studies conducted by The American Institute for Cancer Research as a result of medical findings from The China Study. The three ounce figure, though it is a very conservative one (a greater restriction on meat is indicated for substantial health benefit), is probably not realistic for the American public in the near future. If it is, indeed, thought to be immoral to exist on an unhealthy diet, I suspect that during the next few years many Americans will rethink the morality aspect and decide that unhealthy eating is not so immoral after all. But I also suspect that plants and vegetarianism will increasingly come to form the basis our diets as time goes on. Personally, I have no moral qualms about eating meat because it doesn't seem morally wrong to me. I don't eat much meat, but I do eat it and I at least have the guts to admit that I eat it because I enjoy it, and I don't go posturing about a mythologized superiority of meat diets. The way we have learned to eat meat here in the U.S. (and some other places) is such an unhealthy way to eat that almost ANY diet without meat would be better; this is why it's ridiculous to talk about optimum health in conjunction with a typical meat diet. And talking about optimum health, anyway, is ridiculous in individuals who consume alcohol, coffee, and soft drinks, salt, eat refined flours, consume rich desserts, don't eat lots of raw, dark green leafy vegetables, endure typical mental stress, expose themselves to environmental toxins, sit at desks all day, don't spend much of their time in virorous phyical activity, and put their lives in danger in traffic. Now who does all that? Most of us do SOME of it, but hardly anyone lives their lives to the nth degree of healthiness, so I think we had better drop the charade of linking healthy diet to morality, lest those of us who want to be "optimally" healthy are forced to live in an isolated health bubble. And let's also drop the "vegetarian diets are unhealthy" angle; it's a dead relic of a bygone era. As a whole, all other factors being equal, populations are shown to be healthier and live longer, the LESS meat they eat, with vegans and vegetarians coming in healthiest of all.

04-30-2002, 09:02 PM	#4
SmashingIdols Regular Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: USA Posts: 153	I did read it, and you cannot say that just because the ADA drew the conclusion that they did, and changed appropriately, that the study included that exact information. It did not. Read it again. It implied this, but never actually gathered this particular data. The assertion that the meat consumption was 0-20% was based upon averaging, and there is no way to exactly measure it nor the health of the people that followed these diets. We do in fact know they were healthier. That's about it. Nobody actually followed individuals from the farm to the city, tracking their health. Nobody knows whether the people who had zero meat consumption were very healthy - they could have been starving like vegetarians in Ethiopia. It is an unknown. China was (and still is) a land of great economic disparity. Furthermore, the health records are much better now - we have almost no idea of what the leading causes of death were in rural China (probably politics). We can certainly gather that the causes of death due to coronary disease have risen (yes, I agree, due to large meat consumption), however we do not know if it is really worse than whatever they were dying of before (starvation, malnutrition, etc.). I do not think that Vegetarian diets are necessarily unhealthy - as the ADA says there are many patterns within Vegetarian/Vegan that include animal products, and they must be evaluated individually for nutritional completeness. The money point was brought up because it is perhaps the most salient but ignored point of the Chinese transition to meat - economics make a lousy dietician, yet without addressing this root cause we may never head off the disaster. China will not change by any other means. Neither will we. Last but not least, it has been pointed out to myself that you cannot bring personal experiences onto the web - they are unprovable. According to this mindset, the only information allowable is that which is published (but you cannot say you are the person who is published, either). You cannot prove who you are, what you say is true, or that you are anything other than a brain in a jar. Any second they could come jumping out of the woodwork and accuse you of lying about everything..Oh, nevermind - you are speaking in behalf of vegetarianism, so carry on... So, why don't you go vegan? Sounds like you are convinced.. sounds like you are endorsing it for other people... why not? What holds you back?

05-02-2002, 03:39 PM	#8
SmashingIdols Regular Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: USA Posts: 153	Even in the US I think it would be hard to say that the Vegetarian and Vegan communities are the healthiest. That is just conjecture. I will stand by my statements - I know it is true in my hometown. Define health: Do you mean physical fitness? The healthiest is then the most athletic - a small number of whom are vegetarian. How many pro-athletes are actually vegan? I know Dave Scott is heavily reliant upon Soy, which is a risk I would rather not take (especially after a high intake of soy for over a decade of my life). The envelope of human life is not determined by diet - quality of said life can be greatly enhanced by good diet and exercise, but just doing these things does not gaurantee it. It is the roll of the genetic dice. You could be a happy vegan and live to be 100 - or you can suffer from aging that incapacitates you by 75. Readers might want to go to local vegetarian potlucks in their communities and have a look around. Then they could ask the question themselves "Are these the healthiest people I have seen, as stated above?" This was often pointed out to us at tabling events by the "fitness" crowd. I know this for certain - eating the occasional animal products that I do, combined with the physical exercise I do (6 days a week, alternating groups of muscles and cardiovascular) I am far healthier than my vegan friends. The fattest I ever got in my life was as a vegan - twelve years worth. It was progressive, and finally ended with multiple health problems, including increased food allergies, depression, weight, gall bladder removal after rupture (year 7), feeling exhausted, brittle nails, muscle loss, skin problems, the list goes on. I will not go back. I feel great now. Is my cholesterol a little higher? Yes, but so what. So is my quality of life. Last of all, I guess it was the title that fired me up. Everybody tries to attatch some moral agenda to what we eat. Morality is societal code - and in our soceity it is both moral and ethical to eat animal products. It would be far less moral to force people to be vegetarian, which is the only way this diet will become the world standard.

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