Recently I've started coming to conclusions about my diet and also, huge parts of my own life...I've been thinking about the word moderation and how you apply it to your life. It's saddened me that in my thinking I've found myself and the majority of society don't adhere to it.

If one looks at their diet for example, eating entirely vegan is healthy for you but, it results in problems in the long term, higher acid contents in the body, higher chances of tooth decay due to a lack of phosphorus, calcium and other vital nutrients and fat absorbing nutrients in the body, the same can be applied to vegetarianism (I've recently just become a vegitarian)

I've also looked at the long term side effects of being entirely carnivorous, you ignore a lot of the vital nutrition you gain from fruits and staple carb content like oats, wheat products and various seed/nut products too, it causes you to put on A LOT of weight, and I also think that by continually eating meat, let's say 7 days of the week, you are ingesting 7 days of death into your system, way too much.

So it got me to thinking, perhaps I'm going to attempt to design my own diet, one that includes a 3 way synergy between all 3 main diet types (I know there are more really)

I'm applying this idea to the trinity of mind/body/spirit or science/religion/theology or in another idea, including all aspects of the whole instead of uniquely choosing one path, I'm thinking I'm going to include some days of the week as meat, some days of the week as strictly vegi/vegan and I'm also going to start taking in higher quantities of nutritional foods, cut out the majority of sugars and acids in my diet as to balance it all.

I've got a lot more research and backing to most of these ideas in my head and from various sources in books/the internet but I'm simply saying that we must do ALL things in moderation, be it food, drugs, sleep, sex, EVERYTHING must have a balance. You can neither be one nor the other.

Without the knowledge of evil, one would not know how to be good, without the knowledge of good, one would not know how evil one could be.

This is more or less the approach I've taken to my diet. I eat a lot less meat than I did a few years ago, but still eat it once or twice a week. That being said, every time a conversation about moderation comes up I always have the words of Andrew Bird in my head: "I'm all for moderation but sometimes it seems, moderation itself can be a kind of extreme." The middle path includes a middle path for the middle path.

I completely agree, one can start to take things a little to seriously, what benefit does it really present to me? If I exercise, meditate, and generally treat myself in the best possible of ways, I will live a happy life and I will still die, I have thought this many a time and countered my own arguments too..

I still think however I'm going to try this and see what benefit it provides me, even if it postpones or blocks the path of death for a while longer, it allows me to give a little more love to this world.

I adhere to what my body "tells" me to eat. Normally I try to eat healthy all around anyway. (Fruits, vegetables, meats, grains and such)

Granted what my body tells me could be an un-beneficial craving. Example would be the mini hamburger I had the other day. As it resulted in some gastric irritation afterward. Never again.

The key is, I read the body and energy level after the meal/activity. Which conveys alot of valuable information in itself.

Another example, would be the dark chocolate and fish craving I've been having. One high in antioxidants and the other high in omega-3's. Seems like my brain/body are doing some detoxing and supplement boosting.

My body for the most part genuinely points me in the right direction of what to consume and how much. It's mostly a matter of intuition, trust, research, and a sprinkle of guidance towards a healthy balanced lifestyle.

Didn't plan on typing this much so if you don't read it I understand, at least skim my major points. I've learned a lot in this field in the past year but am no expert so I'm missing a lot of info:

I like your idea. I'm also a vegan but I have to somewhat disagree with the lack of phosphorus/ calcium. If one wishes to increase a vitamin or mineral in their diet, it's far too easy to do so. Google the vitamin/mineral and find a food high in it. Though this doesn't always work... but I assure you the tooth decay you get from eating animal foods and cooked foods with surpass the decay from whatever you may lack in essential vitamins/minerals.

Vegan is only part of the way to the healthiest diet a human can have. Vegans cut out dairy and meat; dairy and meat are extremely detrimental to the body- they are considered a foreign substance, this is why the body mounts an antibody attack everytime you eat an animal food. Humans are not carnivorous, though have resorted to eating meat in times of survival because we are capable of doing so (we have hands which can develop weapons that we aren't born with, altering the nature of humans), unlike most animals who can only catch or retrieve their specific type of food. Of course many vegetarians and vegans also choose to their diet because of the terrible things the industry does to the animals.*

main food groups for reference: meat, dairy, legumes, grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts/seeds

The next large step is cutting out cooked foods. Cooked foods take a healthy food and destroy what's inside and you also consume carcinogens; all of this just to make the food "digestible" because the food is not intended for human consumption in its natural state. This means cutting out a lot of stuff because because they are not digestible in their raw state. Rice is one of the healthier cooked items, but would have to go. Beans (and other legumes) would be out as well (they also cause the body to release gas in order to deal with the bacteria).

Last but not least are grains. Grains contain the same opiates as heroin. Why do you think eating a chip is more satisfying than a piece of fruit? A chip is a hard piece of crap with little to no flavor, nearly all have to have seasonings like salt to make them taste better; same goes for pasta. Do you eat your pasta plain? I do not. Cooked foods and grain addiction is currently a problem for me in my diet. It's a problem for everybody, just nobody knows it.

Of course everyone knows breads aren't good but that's a cooked item and of course isn't a whole food- the less ingredients, the better. Other grains include wheat (pasta, etc.), tortillas, quinoa, rice, & more; some of these grains are obviously healthier than others (i.e. quinoa vs tortillas). But they have to be cooked to become digestible, so they are not fit for human consumption.

The only thing that leaves are fruits, vegetables, & nuts/seeds-a raw food diet (which doesn't include soaking beans and other weird shit some raw foodists do). Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? It's not. I'm not going to go into detail about this diet, but it's very interesting because it's basically the diet meant for humans. It's COMPLETELY different than the diets common in our society today. The idea is to eat fruit for all your calories, vegetables for the minerals that fruits lack, and occasional nuts and seeds can help out as well though the body doesn't digest nuts and seeds as well; an over-consumption of nuts/seeds will lead to health problems later on in life. Anyways, if you wanna read more info than check out websites like this one: Raw Food Health

Though if you really want to learn a lot, this read was amazing: The 80/10/10 Diet by Alexander Graham

A plant based diet is the only way to reverse a number of health issues caused by animals foods. I've heard too many amazing stories where nothing a traditional doctor could do would save a person, but a change in diet literally saved their life. Some people live decades past they day they would've died if they hadn't made a vital change in their diet. Food's so important- it's what we live off of (and of course water, which the average person only drinks a third of what they need).

Fruits & vegetables are the only healthy foods, meaning they are only foods that don't have any negative affects on the body. Fruits are extremely dense in vitamins, veggies are usually vary dense in minerals. Fruits make up a majority of the calories in a raw foodists diet. Of course, some raw foodists indulge in far too many avocados and nuts and have very high body fat which leads them to some of the same problems that people that eat animals foods (foods high in saturated fat) have.


Here's a few interesting reasons why humans aren't carnivores:
-the enzymes in your body are made to digest fruit slowly and easily (if you stop eating animals foods for a week then eat a piece of cheese or worse, red meat, notice your stomach won't feel so good. The body does a terrible job at digesting animal foods).
-all other meats on this planet eat bones, enthralls, the whole schbang. You don't see carnivores cooking a piece of meat over a fire...
-your teeth aren't designed for meat or grains. They're rounded; all other carnivores have pointed teeth and also give birth in litters (for the most part); humans do not. carnivores only sweat from the tongues and also have tails.
-carnivores rest far man than humans because of the way they have to collect food, they expend an immense amount of energy as opposed to a giraffe just eating what's around him (they rest a majority of the day)
-Opposable thumbs: our thumbs are great for picking fruits and veggies of trees and what not. Carnivores have claws, we have nails. Our nails can't rip any living animal without destroying the nails themselves, just as a lion would have a hard time picking a banana from a tree


* I myself turned vegan once I learned of the health consequences of animal products and I've always been deeply saddened by the terror the animal industry creates. If you haven't seen a video of what they do to the animals then you had better. It doesn't make sense to me why people would have other people do the dirty work for them and not acknowledge the horrors behind the animal curtain (of course not every farm is doing bad by animals, small dairy farms could try to "do their best" but in the end it's taking advantage of other creatures on this Earth and enslaving them). Be responsible not oblivious. Call my words radical but I speak the truth.

I myself am not a raw foodist, though I plan to once I get my act together. For now, I'm fine with eating cooked foods at the age of 20, but in the years to come will need to switch. Cooked foods and grain addiction take too much of a toll on me.

Raw foods are great and it's an awesome idea to incorporate more into everyday life. But to say that they're the only healthy foods... "Fruits and vegetables are the only healthy foods" That doesn't make sense. Especially considering the poor quality of store bought fruits and vegetable. You know, I did the raw vegan thing for over a year. I traveled to Costa Rica in this time, to access better quality/fresher foods, and to do some ceremonies and a festival . It really cleaned me out so to speak and gave me a fresh perspective, boosted my self confidence, and made me feel a lot better.

Now I have an amazing perspective on food, but I feel like I need some animal products to reach my full potential of health and well being. But it's a lot different this time. I'm looking for the grassfed/local/organic/pasture-raised/wild fish, eggs, butter, raw cheese and milk, and even some meat. I feel like with the perspective i've gained from raw vegan living, I can now benefit from supplementing my eating with moderate amounts of HIGH quality animal products.

I don't like the whole "dogma" that raw foodism comes with. What I mean is the thinking of "Raw foods are the best and only way, cooked food/animal products are poison" Personally, I felt like I became to obsessive/dogmatic that I eventually ate some meat just so I could get that sorta thinking out of my head, because it's destructive and not good for my social life.
I eat mostly raw foods still nowadays and maybe 1 cooked meal a day. Eating eggs and raw cheese, but no meat. I've come a longgg way in terms of diet...The whole eating thing is quite a trip in itself!

Give up the fanatical diets, they don't work. If you're shopping at a traditional grocery store, even if you are picking "ethical" items, a portion of your money is still going to support factory farming and industrial agriculture. Even a place like Whole Foods carries industrialized foods and a portion of your purchases is going to support this corrupted and destructive system. Wheat is a poison as is soy and corn and they are in literally almost everything in one form or another.

So what's the solution? We all gotta eat and have limited funding to work with. Obviously the best thing you can do is growing as much of your own food as possible, sprouting, microgreens, and windowsill gardens can be done in even the smallest of spaces and year round to add fresh homegrown food to your diet every day. Plus keeping a tradional garden in the warmer months, if you have no space look into getting involved with a community garden or finding a neighbor with a garden or farmer to help out. Next choose local, seek out your local farmers that grow/raise their food ethically and buy directly from them it's usually a lot cheaper than the grocery store and it's very nice to actually see where food comes from and support someone who takes pride the food they are giving you. When you do have to shop at the store choose a locally owned health food store and support organic/healthy farming practices while keeping the money in the local community, they need all the support they can get with places like Whole Foods and Walmart around. Most places also have co-op's and community supported agriculture (CSA) programs available that can save you money on fresh healthy local foods.

Vote with your dollars, be demanding; choose health for yourself, your community, and the environment. Every purchase you make, makes a difference; choose wisely!

♥

Eating healthier will certainly improve someone's life. In the U.S. anyway it's very easy to eat to much junk and way to much sugar.

My family does taco night once a week. It's an excellent excuse to eat lots of lettuce though I still haven't gotten our littlest one to eat it on anything except ordered out sandwiches.

Vitamins are also good, especially for kids if you have them. Getting mine to eat anything aside from sugar and carbs is a pita. I keep trying but giving them vitamins daily takes some of the stress out of my life (I still worry about their nutrition but I don't panic about it when they pick at their dinner).



Taoism is actually non-dualistic



It still applies very much to having a balanced diet but not in the good/evil sense

I'm sorry gualapa but I must disagree with your anti-meat sentiments. Sure we aren't as adept to digesting it as a mammal with sharp teeth and large intestinal tract. But meat did play a huge role in our evolutionary success and population boom, or as I see it, our devolution.

Going raw vegan/fruitarian or any other strict diet is great as a cleanse but in the long run it's very detrimental. It has no anthropological history until current times of poverty in the third world. OP is right that a more balanced approach is the best route.

I'm going to be honest here, Gualapa makes the most logical and valid points, his argument is incredibly interesting and fit's with an argument a friend of mine has been giving me for a long time, DMT convinced me to go vegitarian, and I've been thinking since DMT to take it a step further.. so many valid arguments to do so, I think I'm also going to start making my own toothpastes, fresh distilled waters etc

A lot to think about, perhaps I can apply my taoist idea to fruit and vegetable groups, maybe it's a balance of fruit, vegetables and water..

Thinking time begins.

That's because the fruits and vegetables in stores are terrible. Most raw foodists don't buy their fruit and veggies from the supermarket. There's barely any demand for quality veggies and fruits. People go for whatever's cheapest or organic and that's about it. You have to factor in the fact that most all farms don't rotate crops, so every year the soil becomes more and more depleted, which is what explains some of the vitamin & mineral decreases in fruits (i.e. absence of vitamin B12).


I see your point of view that it's good to be moderate in all categories, however that's simply not true. It's easier to be moderate in all categories because then you get the advantages of all, which might seem great but then you're getting all the disadvantages as well.


well all that article is stating is that our brains developed faster because we started to use it in order to learn how to hunt. Meat doesn't have much to do with it, it's their using their brains and they did so because they needed food, no matter how healthy it was.

There is no history at all suggesting a raw food diet is detrimental, but there is an abundance of history that suggest the opposite. Only time will tell. Raw food diet is a hard one, it's not like eating a burger or a quesadilla. I can compare it my family's bunny who likes eating hay but is addicted to man-made treats. I like bananas (I eat 15-20 a week) but I'm still addicted to toast, chips, pumpkin pie, and many other foods.


Of course I never brought up the argument on how inefficient and how much of an environmental hazard grain & meat production is. Here's some food for thought:
-3/4 of all food grown in the U.S. is grown for the animals we use in industry, that leaves 1/4 for the humans located in the U.S. That not's too efficient if takes 3 times as much as we eat just to produce what we eat
-Meat alone accounts for over half the land used for food, yet it's the least consumed item out of the average american's diet (grains are the most consumed)
-the U.S. is losing about 7 billion tons of topsoil per year, 85% of this is due to livestock grazing and deforestation due to the creation of land for livestock pastures
-a pound of beef takes about 1,940 gallons of water
-a pound of potatoes takes about 64 gallons of water
-a pound of apples takes about 40 gallons of water
-livestock produce 250,000 pounds of poo per second (US), most of which is left untreated
-humans produce 12,000 pounds per second (US)

I'm just to trying to show the ridiculousness of the animal industry. It's much easier to say we should still include animal products in our diet when it can barely fit into a sustainable future. I don't care how ecological a person is, the number's above clearly show something wrong.

^how long have you been a strict raw foodest? Cus I did it for years..strict raw food vegan..my gf did it for 7 years and ran a raw food kitchen in ontario and ran workshops with people like David Wolfe.. We also ate the best organic local farmed produce we could, grew some ourselves, widcrafted and ran a raw food business so had access to the best raw vegan foods you can get in terms of cashews etc at cost..so we had the quality of the food covered. It was not enough.

I can tell you that much of what is claimed of the raw vegan diet is a load of bullshit. Sorry to be so blunt but i lived it and believed it and I also ended up in the end suffereing becasue of it and so did my gf and other people I have met. I have still never met in person a long term raw vegan who I would concider healthy.

Maybe you can do it..maybe some other people can but Im am just saying..I DO have a substancial ammount of first hand experience here and my experience has been that it does not work for me or others I have met, for the long term. Just my 2 cents..

There is really not much evidence to support the diet anyway..there is far more evidence to support a balanced whole foods diet. You find a trend of raw food and vegan forums where the people that get behond it to defend it the most are new to it, so lack any real long term experience..there are always the exceptions but then you take one look at many of them in real life and realize that..well you dont want to look like the majority of them do.

The meat arguement is part fallacy. Yes factory farming sucks so dont support it..support grass fed freerange organic sustainable farming..this cuts out all the land going to waste to grow grains to feed animals, which is a HUGE part of the problem.

Personally I was once a strict vegan who thought that it would save the world..At some point I had to come to terms with the fact that humans evolved eating meat. That does not mean the way farming is being done right now is a great thing or that people should support it..but malnutrition aint so great either..just saying..

I will tell you what is better than cutting out meat. Cutting out wheat and tap water..eat quinoa or wild rice instead and drink spring water..there is far more real data to support doing something like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiHaW1Zs3VY

Did she not do the diet right either?

One thing that isn't sufficiently discussed or acknowledged is that, whether you insist you need meat or not, you definitely do not need A LOT OF IT. A person could easily be in optimum or near-optimum physical condition and yet eat meat only twice a week, for example.

The case has been made for a long time that Americans, in particular, eat TOO MUCH meat.

You can help the world--and animals in the agriculture food chain--by refraining from GORGING yourself on meat and meat products. One meal a day with meat will easily meet all nutritional needs that CAN be met using meat--IOW, what you eat otherwise is ALSO important, but you will not be in nutritional deficit from needs you will have that CAN be met by meat (I hope that's not confusing)...

did you really read the article? you just poorly parroted the first sentences of it. & that sentence clearly states that meat helped in development of larger brains. regardless, the article was actually about weaning time in relation to carnivorous diet and population boom in prehistory.

So, yes, meat did play an integral role in our species evolution.



Oh really? What about this study from the American Society for Nutritional Sciences, showing that a strict raw vegan/fruitarian diet leads to remarkably low serum total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations. The brain's dry weight is 60% fat where cholesterol plays a vital role in neuron signaling and brain function! Being deficient in cholesterol can lead to as small as random brain farts, to developing suicidal tendencies. Ever wonder why most cults had strict vegan diets for their followers? Well now you know.... Not to mention there's loads of physical vitamin & nutritional deficiency in these strict diets. I know many people who were on this diet for years, and while the first few years seemed great (detox), they eventually gave it up due to health &/or psychological problems. Everything from food allergies to orthorexia (an obsession and paranoia on what food you consume). There is a whole host of physical and psychological problems that can occur from these kinds of strict diets.

I understand where you're coming from if you just discovered this and it seems all grand and dandy, which it is, because it's a great detox. After awhile though you start to run into problems, guaranteed.

well first off I already covered why there's a b12 deficiency in fruits & veggies but that's beside the point. I'm not saying everybody should switch to a raw food diet, but there's just as much clear evidence against it as there is for it.



I read the whole article. If you are going to say meat helps evolution you need a reason... I read the article and the only reason it listed was because when they took up hunting, it got their brains going which led to development. Unless you can extract an actual reason as to why it was essential in the evolution of the human body, I won't understand where your coming from.

no offense, but that your rest of your post started to get kind of random and makes it hard to respond. In case you ever wondered, I haven't ever wondered about why cults have strict vegan diets. We could bicker back and forth with our opinionated truths, but it's not gonna get us very far. I just don't see how it can possible for one to think we can actually further our species by enslaving another. I don't know though, I'm weird like that.

You need to reread that article/study if all you got out of it was hunting. That was the first two sentences. The rest of the article is about prehistoric carnivorous diet effecting weaning time in child birth in relation to hominid population. If you really aren't that good of a reader, than here's an article on evolution and meat from NPR, and with this article you can listen to it : http://www.npr.org/2010/08/02/128849908/food-for-thought-meat-based-diet-made-us-smarter

Or if you wanna be all rebellious and prove me wrong that you are capable of reading, here's a study from UC Berkeley, http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/6-14-1999a.html, or how about from USC http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/9985.html, or maybe you wanna get all Switzy over at Lund University http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0032452

If you really don't believe that meat played a vital role in our evolution after all that material, then I think you need to get your serum cholesterol levels checked, that raw vegan diet may be making you a bit cloudy.

Okay, now you're probably like, fuck this guy giving me all this shit to research; I know the real troof! Let me make it even easier for you. Here's an MTV True Life episode about 3 people that have orthorexia from their raw vegan diets. http://www.mtv.com/videos/true-life-i-have-orthorexia/1683486/playlist.jhtml

I get you though, I was in your same shoes. You're super mad at the whole factory farm state of food affairs. Everyone is... Like Jamie said before though, there are plenty of grass fed free roam ethical meat farms out there as alternative. Balance my friend, balance!

"well first off I already covered why there's a b12 deficiency in fruits & veggies"

Yeah well..sorta not really.

I understand your stance and for some time I believed that you could get enough b12 from food right from the ground..and I was eating food from the garden daily without washing, as well as wildcrafting herbs and eating them right from the field etc..I have also been on nothing but freshly collected spring water for 5 years I get myself at the source, which many vegans(myself included at the time) claim is all the b12 a vegan needs. All wild water contains cobalamin in some ammounts.

I have stated all the typical reasons for why animals products are not necessary etc in the past when getting into this discussion with other people. I just dont believe it at this point. I dont expect you to just listen to me either..becasue to be honest if this had been me a year or 2 ago I would have been claiming veganism is the best thing ever..or something like that

At this point I dont really feel that claiming that eating fruits and veggies right form the dirt as is will provide the necessary cobalamin really means much..do you have a reliable scientific paper to back that up? If not it is just some thing that vegans are prone to saying. I know, people say it..I said it and I know others are going to keep on saying it. My experience tells me different though. My experience is what really means the most to me.

I think that most people figure out what works and what does not in the end anyway..dont listen to me..I would think it was sort of weird if people simply bought what I say without experiencing something for themselves or doing more research. Usually after a couple years on a given diet you find out what works and what does not. I felt like I was on a high for the first 18 months or so on a 100% raw vegan diet and at times went fruitarian thinking I was gunna become invincible..the second half of my raw vegan experiment was a long time of slowly going downhill..downhill more and more until I was nauseated all the time..was way way to light for my height and felt tired every moment of the day no matter how much I ate. That all turned arouond right away when I got onto raw grass fed dairy, freerange eggs and some fish. My gf was in a much worse condition than I having gone 7 years raw vegan to the point where she could not even have a normal period anymore and naturopath was telling her she had seriously wacked out hormone levels usually seen in women in menopause..not women in their 20's...she also began having panic attacks..all gone within weeks of eating animal products.

So my intuition is telling me this vegan diet is not what it is made out to be.

"but I assure you the tooth decay you get from eating animal foods and cooked foods with surpass the decay from whatever you may lack in essential vitamins/minerals."

What? Do you have a source for that? If you look at the work of Weston Price the finding are that no tooth decay is due to meat..he started his whole on the idea that tooth decay would be much less in traditional vegan diets(of which he never was able to find becasue no indigenous people are vegan)..he found indigenous peoples that eat tons of animal products and had amazing teeth, bone and jaw structure..also without the overbites seen today and need for braces.

The theory of epigenetic damage he put forth was based on his observation of the declining oral health and bone structure leading to chronic disease that was observed in cultures that had adopted a diet based on industrial agriculutre..mainly pasturized dairy, wheat and refined vegetable oils, coryn syrups etc..not meat.

I would really like to see some kind of evidence for claims against meat..cus so far I dont see anything substancial.

@fairbanks I'm still confused how weaning times affected the evolution of mankind. Everybody has their own opinions, you can claim balance, I believe otherwise. There isn't enough grass in the ground to feed all the animals in the industry. That's why 3 quarters of our food production goes to the livestock in the first place.

@jamie I don't have any sources to back up anything, I haven't bookmarked or saved any info that I've learned over the past year. You might have experience b/c of what your girlfriend went thru, I've gained experience saying otherwise because I knew someone who had 5 gastric bypass surgeries that would've died unless they switched to a plant-based diet.