Posts by coeurage

What's your name (first)? Jenny.

Height? 170cm.

Age? 20 years old~

Weight? 57kg, when I was weighed a week ago.

Highest weight? 66kg, when I was 15-ish and actually slightly taller, apparently.

Lowest? My birth weight? O: (Just kidding (only, taken literally, it's the truth for all of us!). At my worst, when suffering from an ED, 38kg.)

Goal weight? I'm sure my body will decide this!

Your favorite color? Teal or aquamarine blue. :)

Favorite snack? I don't snack too often... Salmon sushi maybe?

Favorite workout? Don't have one? I love sports though - so any sort of sport I guess.

Ever had an ED (hope notX)? Yes... unfortunately.

Who's the most important person to you right now and why? My mother; without her, I never would have entered recovery from an eating disorder. She gave me life, and then saved my life.

What are you doing this month? Any occasions in particular? Studying for exams! ... Back to studying after this, thank you for reminding me.

How many calories do you eat a day? Between 3,500kcals and 4,500kcals.

How much do you workout? Only necessary walking to reach bus stops and to get to school or the grocery store.

What's your favorite type of music? I love all genres with the exception of rap. (Blues? Fine. Classical? Cool. Pop? That's good too.)

Who are you favorite singers? Eek, don't have any favourites. Taylor Swift has a lovely voice though.

I you could choose 5 foods to be CALORIE FRE which would it be?!? I don't want any of my favourite foods to be Calorie free! I enjoy getting energy from everything I eat. :D

Are you a vegetarian? Nope.

Do you drink Starbucks? Never!

I don't know how many kcalories your meal plan has either, but you don't need to be "at least 50kg" - you need to be WAY above that. At your height of 172cm, 57kg would be a healthier goal, but would still put you at a very low BMI of 19. Most eating disorder specialists would recommend at least a BMI of 20 - and that is still low. As a teenager, you should be consuming well over 3,000 kcalories per day to recover from a restrictive eating disorder, to repair all of havoc that has been wreaked on your internal organs, body tissues, etc. You will not gain weight "too fast" on that amount, guaranteed. (NOTE: Initial weight gain may be rapid, because the large majority of it is water weight and not actual fat mass or muscle mass.)

If you prefer flavoured yogurt, then go for it. You should not be consuming any diet products or "low fat" products like low fat cheese. It's great that you are drinking full-fat milk - opt for full-fat yogurt (flavoured or not; flavoured will make it easier to get enough kcalories over the course of the day, and in this case, more is actually much, much better) and full-fat cheeses. Spread butter on toast, or nut butters. Because it's hard to gauge portion sizes from your meal plan, it's hard to know if you are eating enough. It looks like you are on your way there, but you could do with incorporating other sources of healthy fats. (Saturated fats are healthy, as are monounsaturated (e.g. from avocados, olives).)

Also, recovery and weight gain are highly individualistic. Any time you are maintaining, though, when you still have a large amount to gain, you should be increasing your kcalories. Eat to gain. Your body desperately needs the energy and fuel to repair internal damage. If you're maintaining, then your body is using all you're giving it just to carry you through each and every day, and it has no spare energy for internal repair. I said 3,000 kcalories as a benchmark, but many people eat far more than that if need be. (Personally, I had to consistently eat 3,500kcals to 4,000kcals a day to recover, and I'm 170cm tall. Eating those amounts gave me a relatively stable weight gain rate of 0.25kg - 0.5kg a week, which is painfully slow as it is.)

All the best in your recovery! If I can help at all, feel free to message. :)

Aha! And thus I find your true motivation for being vegetarian. :) (Or rather you point it out.) The fact that some of my friends abstain from animal eating for *ethical purposes* is one of the reasons we can co-exist without proselytizing to one another about the benefits of our respective diets.

As we seem to be converging on this same point - yes, health is so multi-factorial and the definition of it so subjective that it seems fair to conclude that there is not really one optimal diet for everyone (which, when I look back, I seemed to be suggesting??! Sorry for that!). And I know you said it with humour, but you're right - if eating meat causes you discomfort at any level, then I probably wouldn't suggest eating it. And ah, finally - searched for this study for 30 minutes! This "theory" needs a lot of development, I'll admit, but there at least seems to be some evidence that eating something you find unappetizing leads you to absorb less nutrition from the meal. The link takes you to a study that compares the absorption of iron from a Thai-based meal vs. a typical Swedish meal in Thai and Swedish women. Interestingly, the Thai women get more out of the meal that's familiar to them than the Swedish women get out of the same role. Now, there are many possible causes for this, but one proposed explanation is that the Swedish women found the Thai meal unappetizing before they ate it. Logically this makes sense to me - but like I said, it's just a theory and needs some work. Nevertheless, I think the brain-gut connection is much more powerful than scientists give it credit for. If you're looking at your steak, imagining the animal that died so that it could reach your plate and dreading eating it, then I can't help but wonder if the nutritional benefit of you eating it anyway is actually lessened. So actually, I do share your outlook. To quote one author, "Eating well and with pleasure is more than mere pleasure seeking - it's good nutritional policy and practice!"

Re: the Buddhist nun study you linked. The findings do not surprise me at all. My main concern for vegans is not that they don't get enough calcium. I think that mineral is way overblown in its significance and how everyone is told to "drink milk for strong bones!" From what I've seen, the calcium debate is finally taking a turn for the better (at least online) and putting more focus on the vitamins and minerals that are necessary to work in concert with calcium than over-consuming calcium by itself. I think the dairy industry has harmed more than it has helped, in this sense. (I'm not a milk supporter.) I think calcium is certainly very important for bones, but my worries would be more centered on how vitamin D and vitamin K deficiencies seem rampant in the US. My very subjective view of the study would be that both the omnivores and vegans had some degree of osteoporosis because there are people in both groups (probably a lot of people) who are deficient in the vitamins and other minerals necessary for good bone health. (Magnesium deficiency seems quite common, too...) Any vegetarian that tells me that dairy isn't necessary for good (or great!) bone health would have my whole-hearted agreement. In fact, I would recommend to omnivores - as sources of calcium - what is recommended to vegans: leafy greens, broccoli, sweet potatoes, (and to omnivores I would add: canned salmon and sardines (from their [edible] bones)). And get lots of vitamin D and A.

To keep with my role as the omnivorous skeptic though, here is a study also conducted on mostly Buddhist Taiwanese vegetarian women. Don't let the title mislead you into thinking I'm going to use it to support full vegetarianism. ;) (To critique it before I continue: some very important factors that obviously couldn't be controlled (or weren't accounted for) were the facts that Buddhists are usually going to be much better at stress management and have a more positive outlook on life - which, as we've established - are also important determinants of physical health.) Anyway, the [first] study shows that the vegetarians had less vascular inflammation (lower Lp-PLA2; one marker for inflammation). However, they also had [almost statistically significant] higher levels of C-reactive protein, along with higher levels of homocysteine and serum triglycerides. They go on to propose possible reasons (abundance of soy in the vegetarians' diets, cooking foods in oil (maybe over high heat, maybe "bad" cooking oils)). The main takeaway from this study, for me, was that the protective effects of vegetarianism may be due to factors other than "not eating meat". This is really just another study to throw into the confusing debate you mentioned in your earlier post - the debate about whether the benefits of vegetarianism are due to "eating fruits and vegetables and other "good things" [or due to] not eating meat". It's great that they had lower Lp-PLA2, but higher circulating blood triglycerides and higher CRP levels aren't helpful and might offset any potential benefit.

I like ending these notes always along the lines of, "I think we agree on more than most people would think" but generalize that to [health conscious!] meat-eaters and vegetarians or vegans having more in common than they think. For one thing, I know with almost certainty that there is one point that health gurus - both the vegan and meat-eating ones - agree on, and that is that people need to eat less refined food (from refined flours or refined sugars) and less industrially refined fats (we're talking animal fats from feedlot animals and hydrogenated oils). Does red meat deserve to be on that list? Well, I would argue that feedlot beef, GM pigs (or pork chock-full of hormones and antibiotics), Frankenfish and the like deserve to be on the "AVOID" list. But otherwise? I would say it's hard to tell. Studies on vegetarians that merely change their diets to avoid animal flesh but do not change so as to incorporate more fresh produce or move away from refined foods seem to show that their health outcomes are no different than those of standard meat eaters... except the vegetarians have higher homocysteine levels.

I have heard people say before that "a [crummy] diet with supplements is still a [crummy] diet" (changed the 'swearing'). From my point of view, that applies to vegetarianism or veganism as well: "a crummy diet without meat is still a crummy diet." Luckily, most people who make the change to vegetarianism or, more radically, to veganism also implement large overhauls for their lifestyle - oftentimes they exercise more, quit smoking, or practise things like yoga to manage stress better. Also, having a "cause" to fight for and believe in cannot be ignored as a factor that usually improves outlook on life and maybe even self-confidence!

Thanks for directing us to this post! Your return to eating real food to regain some weight sounds very, very similar to the recovery process I went through in gaining weight after having a restrictive eating disorder, actually. Making the decision to eat real food lifted the bars on so many things I used to disallow and made choosing what to eat so much easier. [In saying this, though, I don't know if a 100% unprocessed diet is best for every ED sufferer (I have to admit that I doubt it; recovery is unique to every individual) but certainly learning the benefits of things like saturated fat, which conventional dietary wisdom shuns, really seems to help.]

I remember when I first lost my period three years ago and an OB/GYN was telling me a story of how one of her patients, who kept trying to conceive and just couldn't, magically got her wish when she tried out a diet with a few more homemade burgers and being a little more generous with butter. Not surprising, considering the fact there there is some evidence that women on diets low in saturated fatty acids are less likely to get pregnant or regular periods. Even the saturated fatty acids in full-fat dairy seem to have protective effects for pregnant women.

Saturated fat won't kill you! :P Thanks for sharing and spreading the word, haha. :)

Original Post by lysistrata: Part of the problem in drawing such a distinction is defining the difference.  Of course, technically butchering meat is processing it, so at what point do you draw a distinction between something minimally processed, like a steak, something moderately processed, like ground beef, and something highly processed, like bologna?  Presence of sodium nitrites, maybe, would be a place to start, especially since the health impacts of those substances have already been well documented.

While I take your point about the difference between grass-fed and feedlot meats - Floggingsully posted a study in the other thread about the nutritional difference between those types of meats - to my knowledge, there hasn't been a health study yet comparing outcomes based on that distinction.  I think a study like that would be very interesting.

Perhaps I didn't give armandouc and carmenxox enough benefit of the doubt that they were actually interested in engaging in a thoughtful analysis of the study.  At the time, armandouc had been posting some things in the other thread about this study that were clearly not true, if one had actually read the study.  Things like how the study didn't take into account lifestyle factors like smoking and exercise, when the study clearly acknowledges the existence of smoking and exercise as confounding factors and employs multivariate analysis to address the impacts.  And the whole "The study doesn't prove causation, therefore the study proves NOTHING" fallacy is so ridiculous as to leave us with nothing to talk about.  Would we be saying that studies about the health benefits of washing your hands as a preventative during cold and flu season prove NOTHING since they don't prove causation?  Of course not. 

By all means, critique the studies on their merits!

You make a very good point in that first paragraph. Personally, I think the line between "nonprocessed" to "processed" is crossed already when mincing meat to make ground beef. As for why highly processed meat products are so horrible, I can't offer many explanations. I know nitrates and nitrites are often held responsible, but vegetables are also good sources of nitrates, so I'm not sure that nitrates are to blame. Sodium laced into the meat may be a problem. Maybe the advanced glycation end products that are formed in the processing? I appreciate that the study you posted on the Seventh-day adventists also pointed out that cooking methods are important - I agree with that. I think most cooking methods for meats create all sorts of harmful compounds - especially on the surfaces of the meat.

I too would be interested in studies that look at the differences in markers of health between, maybe, full-out vegans, vegetarians, grain-fed meat eaters, and grass-fed and -finished meat eaters. By markers of health, though, I don't just mean "total cholesterol" and "LDL" - I would want to see tests for C-reactive protein and maybe apo(a1):apo(b) ratio... Maybe oxidized LDL, too.

We could critique the studies more, but the researchers themselves do a good job of pointing out flaws. As the researchers who wrote the Oxford paper said - results may absolutely have been confounded by the healthy volunteer effect, which is almost always more profound in vegetarian participants. I am pretty sure that it is fair to say that there are more health conscious vegetarians than health conscious meat eaters, and I would actually agree with sparklystark that most people eat too much meat (and too much of the wrong kind). I just don't think that a diet totally devoid of any sort of animal protein is what's best for human health... Here is one recent review paper that cites in its abstract that "prudent" diets and vegetarian diets show the same health benefits. This one claims that there is "no significant difference in the mortality caused by colorectal, stomach, lung, prostate or breast cancers and stroke between vegetarians and "health-conscious" nonvegetarians." This one is a bit on the fence about whether or not vegan diets are truly beneficial (although there were very weak correlations implying benefits).

(EDIT: Also, yes I realized that the Harvard study acknowledged the confounding factors. They did say, however, that accounting for these factors caused the correlation between meat intake and its impact on health to weaken significantly.)

In the end, I'm not really here to convince you that you need meat ASAP! ... Though I'll still argue that animal-derived foods that have been minimally processed (i.e. as little as possible and almost not at all) are necessary in achieving "optimal health". I would think this applies to everyone - but who really knows? If you tell me you feel best when you're not eating meat, who am I to say that you're not "feeling correctly" then? If I really think that, I'll keep it to myself. :P Like you, I just want everyone to have their facts straight!

(I'm not in any way denying that links you posted about the connection between meat (processed or otherwise) and various illnesses are bad science or incorrect. I would merely question their validity and both what type of meat they were using and what cooking methods.)

Thanks for the discussion thus far!

Original Post by stataryn:

Original Post by lysistrata:
Nobody has any problem with omnivores posting in the veg forum, so welcome. Just don't get in a habit of evangelizing for meat, -k-?  ;)

I did not see anyone evangelizing for meat. Actually it seems people Evangelize for both meat and Veganism [...]

Indeed, I was not evangelizing meat. :P I certainly agree that there is too much evangelism from both sides and I'm not a fan of dogmatic approaches - especially when it comes to diet and health, where everything is highly individual since everyone is unique. In my own, very personal opinion, veganism and vegetarianism are not optimal for health. That said, I have plenty of friends who do it for ethical reasons, and I find it more acceptable in that light. Like I said, though, that's my subjective point-of-view.

sparklystark, obviously since I am an omnivore, I would be one to tell you that there are - as you pointed out - health benefits from eating grass-fed, grass-finished beef or wild bison or locally-farmed, organic chickens (cage-free, and truly free-range (i.e. not stuck in a barn with a tiny door leading outside)) or eggs. I have heard good things about The Vegetarian Myth, so I'll probably check it out some time for new insight (hopefully). Wasn't Lierre Keith previously a vegetarian?

lysistrata, I wasn't sure if one of the comments in your initial response was directed to me, regarding a supposed "processed foods are bad for you, not meat" hypothesis...? But in any case, I think a point worth establishing is that processed meats (fast food hamburgers, sausages, spam, etc.) shouldn't really be lumped together with meats from ethically-raised animals. Here is a review posted on 20 studies that found that red meat wasn't correlated with higher risk of type II diabetes or CHD. (However, like in the original Harvard study you posted, many of the studies reviewed used FFQs. I'm sure that most people by now have very little confidence in the use of these in studies relating to diet and health...) And here is a study showing that processed meat seems to deserve vilification, not necessarily red meat.

I can post more studies, but like you said: this forum is really not the place for discussing the benefits of meat-free diets VS. meat-inclusive diets. I think where I was seeing the unfairness in that you were making no distinction between the types and quality of red meats out there. Grouping red meat (ethically-raised, etc.) with feedlot meats and processed meats is a pretty big generalization. Even if this is a vegetarian forum, it would've been nice to see some distinction being made between processed [and/or feedlot or CAFO] meats and meats from more ethically-raised creatures. Otherwise, some of the statements and information being posted just seem flat-out wrong...

stataryn, I would actually disagree that soy milk is better than milk from a cow... only in that neither are particularly good for you! And just as I'm arguing against the generalized grouping of all red meats into one category, I don't think it's fair to say that vegans "need to get off their high horse". That would imply that they all act "high and mighty" - which, in my experience, is not true for everyone.

melkor, no idea who Zoe is (or why they're a carbophobe?!) but thanks for the link to the analysis! I agree that criticisms and evaluations of study do not mean we should dismiss most studies entirely... we just need to be cognizant of the limitations each time.

I can't speak for armandounc and carmenxox, but maybe seeing more of a discussion for why or why not the Harvard study is a good source of evidence for the benefits of vegetarianism would have dissuaded some of the initial dissension? I can definitely relate to feeling tempted to post a comment to get people to recognize the flaws of a study that they're touting as evidence for adopting a vegetarian diet, when there are surely better studies out there.

Original Post by fincharella:

I agree that balancing O-3s and 6s is paramount, but having gone back down the rabbithole this morning, I am finding more and more evidence suggesting that they are toxic in anything more than modest quantities.

First, a basic synopsis on vegetable oil oxidation/toxicity:

http://www.sciguru.com/newsitem/13087/Researc hers-detect-toxic-aldehydes-reheated-oil

An abstract (and link to full text PDF) citing that "chronic uptake of (unsaturated lipids) increases tumor frequency and incidence of atherosclerosis in animals"

http://www.ajcn.org/content/57/5/779S.abstrac t

There is a lot of interesting stuff here, too.....

http://thatpaleoguy.com/2012/01/22/the-adipog enic-effect-of-omega-6-polyunsaturated-fats/

Hope someone will enjoy these.

Thanks for the links. I am really supposed to be studying and will take a look at all of them in more depth later and post again...

As for the second study - it does state several interesting points:

"... heavily oxidized oils given orally are not acutely toxic." 

"... there is an overall lack of gross pathological effects of heavily or mildly oxidized oils."

"... a high PUFA intake with insufficient protection by antioxidants ... might also be a risk for atherosclerosis."

I definitely need to thoroughly read this one through, too, but it seems to mostly be demonstrating the damaging effects of oxidized fatty acids and oxidatively modified LDL...

I'm not sure if I entirely agree that PUFAs are inherently "toxic in anything more than modest quantities", but I do think we need a lot less of them than we are told. Sorry for not doing your studies justice. I'm sure armandounc will (if he hasn't already by the time I post this) do a great job of looking through them.

Original Post by desiredmembernamelol:

Idiot alert: but how do you cook those kinds of beans?... Just boil them till they're mushy?

Best to soak most types of beans. The standard seems to be an overnight soak, although many could benefit from much longer soaking times (to reduce phytic acid and other antinutrient content, and to make them easier in to digest in the long run). I'm sure you can found loads of sites online with instructions for different beans, or on the packages themselves, as others have pointed out. Typically the process seems to be: 1) Soak for x hours. 2) Cook in fresh water, on a stove top. Either bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer (or cook over low heat) until cooked through (most beans take over an hour, but there are definitely exceptions, and lentils and split beans cook much faster). 3) Drain and enjoy!

As for canned beans - just check the ingredients list? Most don't contain animal products, I would think, unless they are in a chili mixture or something. (Often the ingredients are the beans, sodium chloride (or salt), and/or sodium EDTA.) I used to use them a lot before realizing how cost effective cooking beans from scratch is. (And cooking them yourself ensures you avoid any BPA that may leach into canned beans from the lining in those cans!)

Here is a fairly comprehensive review of the potential effects of polyunsaturated fatty acids (both n-3 and n-6) on health, which a focus on n-6. (Just to get discussion going again!) I haven't had the chance to read through the entire review myself, yet, but the ratio suggested seems to go up to 4-to-1 for n-6 to n-3 (though obviously that's always going to be debatable, and may very well be different depending on each individual).

Have to comment on the OP's statement of "why this information isn't more mainstream"... I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but doesn't this come down to the government protecting the food industry? The food industry uses mostly cheap oils that have unfavourable omega-6 to omega-3 ratios, which makes me feel like the whole ratio thing isn't common knowledge because it might freak people out about what they're eating. (Not going to go as far to say that it would dissuade people from eating processed foods, since many people will still eat whatever tastes good. Even if they're concerned, telling people that their PUFA ratio is off won't do much good if there isn't subsequent information about how to correct it.) < There is plenty I could add to this paragraph, but I'll leave it at that and let others tear it apart or add to it...

(Also, this knowledge is out there and readily available on the Internet. You found it, I found it, and a host of others have... It seems like we are the minority though. The majority would rather not take the time to find these things out, and would rather hear it from "professionals" anyway.)

I'm a university student, and while I used to be one of those people who pulled all-nighters several nights in a row (running on caffeine pills since I dislike coffee), I really prioritise sleep now. 7 hours seems to give me maximum alertness the following day, so that's how much I aim for every night.