Thanks for this fantastic article. I learned a lot from it.
My experience is as follows.
I am an Orthodox Christian. Part of the tradition is fasting, which, among other things, implies abstinence from food of animal origin during fasting, which is 40 days each before Christmas and Easter, two short summer fasts, and every Wednesday and Friday. About half a year in total.
So, a combination of both extremes in one year.
I am 57 years old and I feel phenomenal, healthy, and vital. I do not recommend it! This is my story and I like it.
Fasting is one of the best methods for healing ... and keeping a body healty. I regularly do water fasting (ie consuming nothing but water) for 1 to 3 days. My preferred fasting days are the New Moon days, which are particularly powerful bc the descending moon supports detoxification - with the max at new moon.
I can attest to a similar timeline diet profile . Very closely finding the vegetarian lifestyle of my 20s, moving into vegan focus by my 30s left my physiology breaking down. Disease set in and recovery way slow , over years . Protein from animal sources was critical for bone and tissue regeneration. Even my hormones were affected in weird ways by omitting animal protein. My general theory is that ancestral diets have likely created genetic templates that determine how a body assimilates and utilizes various nutrients from food. Eastern, sub continent, tropical, Northern European, or notably Arctic peoples have radically different body systems when it comes to food.
My next article addresses your argument about animals having to die for us to have food.
Of course, I am familiar with the China Study. As a mathematician, my judgement is: It is a totally worthless.
Firstly, it is an OBSERVATIONAL study from which one CANNOT conclude anything reasonable. You would need CLINICAL studies.
Secondly, even clinical studies are almost impossible to conduct in this area, because there are just way too many variables involved. You would need to isolate variables, such as individual foods, then have sufficiently large test groups just for that. And since you can't separate the effects of nutrition from the effects of exercise and mindset, you would need to make sure everyone within a test group does the same amount of exercise and shares the same mindset, etc. Without this, it is IMPOSSIBLE to draw ANY reasonable conclusions.
The China-Oxford-Cornell Study of which this is based has value regardless of observational variables. Clinical studies-yes-would be great!
I don't think Dr T Colin Campbell, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell, Richard Peto of the University of Oxford, and Li Junyao of the China Cancer Institute others involved would agree with your assessment of their studies as worthless!
I am not preaching to others re what they want to ingest. I normally sidestep this discussion, as like other hot topics-vaccines or guns or ____, there are some very angry people who enjoy aggressively pouncing upon anyone who has a different outlook.
Being a mathematician who once gave up meat, I'm sure you have heard all the quotes, but I will end with one I wholeheartedly agree.
"As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
The key question is: do you want to know the truth about the China Study, or do you want to believe in it so that you have support for your belief system? Your choice.
If you want the truth, then you must look at it critically and ALSO look at evidence that it is not what it claims it is. (Thesis and anti-thesis.) Here are four links to articles that present evidence that the study is very poor research:
The value of the China Study is NOT what people say it is, simply because it is an observational study. Of course, its authors would not agree with my assessment.
Unfortunately, statistics is misused widely. A group of mathematicians once investigated the articles published in one of the leading scientific journals of oncology ... and found that one third of the conclusions were unfounded based on the published data. This excludes cases were unwanted data was suppressed, which, unfortunately, is a common practice.
I love constructive conversations when there is disagreement. Do you have a degree in mathematics so that we can talk professionally about this?
I have been a vegetarian since 1963. I am in perfect health. Don't have digestion issues, have regular bowel movements and ensure a balanced diet, proper exercise, and sufficient sleep and rest. So, saying that a vegetarian diet is ultimately unhealthy is a crock.
With all due respect, but either you can't READ, or you can't UNDERSTAND, or you can't think LOGICALLY, ... or you're just a destructive crock seeking a fight. You misquoted me. I did NOT use the word "ultimately" nor the word "unhealthy."
I stated VERY CLEARLY that I write about a PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. I even quoted Arthur Schopenhauer saying "The personal experience has the advantage of absolute certainty." I wrote "Today I know – from experience ... A vegetarian diet is malnutrition."
I KNOW what I experienced; and I shared my experience. Only an utterly arrogant and condescending person can call someone's personal experience a crock.
I'm glad for you that a vegetarian diet has worked for you up to today. But this does NOT prove it is healthy. This does NOT mean it will continue to work for you. I suggest you study the science philosopher Karl Popper ... a million examples can't prove a conjecture; but a single counterexample disproves it. I am proof that the conjecture "A vegetarian diet is healthy" is wrong. Full stop. Simple logic.
I felt in perfect health and didn't have digestive issues for 25 years; I know many people who made the same experience; some of them crashed earlier than after 25 years. Maybe you have good genes that allow you to go longer. Maybe you will crash in two years. You don't KNOW. You KNOW only your past; the future has yet to unfold.
But again this was just your experience and not a universal truth. I know people in my country who are Brahmins and eating animalsl food is forbidden for them . I find them to be intelligent as well as physically strong.b
PS: How can these people be truly intelligent when they submit to a set of rules? Any set of rules is not natural. Nature is truthfulness; everything else is untruthful. If these people were truly intelligent, they would see that they are unfree (by these rules) and they would free themselves.
Here's my take on intelligence:
“Why and How We Lose Our Innate Intelligence – and Can Regain It”:
I agree with that but at the same time I feel , isn't life too short to actually make all our beliefs from scratch??? I mean I think a lot of times it is easier to just follow some rules until they stop serving you I guess ...
The trouble is, you never know FOR SURE if rules from outside are helpful or harmful. My 36 years as a vegetarian are ample proof. With all the resulting damage to my body I wished I had NOT followed this set of rules ...
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Sugar is the worst.
🤗🤗
Thanks for this fantastic article. I learned a lot from it.
My experience is as follows.
I am an Orthodox Christian. Part of the tradition is fasting, which, among other things, implies abstinence from food of animal origin during fasting, which is 40 days each before Christmas and Easter, two short summer fasts, and every Wednesday and Friday. About half a year in total.
So, a combination of both extremes in one year.
I am 57 years old and I feel phenomenal, healthy, and vital. I do not recommend it! This is my story and I like it.
Thank you, Mladena, for sharing your story.
Fasting is one of the best methods for healing ... and keeping a body healty. I regularly do water fasting (ie consuming nothing but water) for 1 to 3 days. My preferred fasting days are the New Moon days, which are particularly powerful bc the descending moon supports detoxification - with the max at new moon.
I like your approach a lot!
Thank you, Bernhard.
I also do a water fasting. A few days at the beginning and the end of the main fasting periods and on the New Moon.
The New Moon is an ideal period for detoxification, as you said, and also for setting intentions and new beginnings.
I like to enter new cycles with pure energy. And water is ideal and sufficient.
The comments of this article discuss the pros and cons of meat eaters and vegetarian 🌱 options.
.
https://wisdomschool.com/p/longevity?r=3le9sh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
.
I was going to give up meat 🥩 until I read your 36 year experience message.
Eating meat has Not caused any illness to me.
One comment in the link said indigenous people eat meat and live to be over 💯.
Thank you for sharing the link!
I can attest to a similar timeline diet profile . Very closely finding the vegetarian lifestyle of my 20s, moving into vegan focus by my 30s left my physiology breaking down. Disease set in and recovery way slow , over years . Protein from animal sources was critical for bone and tissue regeneration. Even my hormones were affected in weird ways by omitting animal protein. My general theory is that ancestral diets have likely created genetic templates that determine how a body assimilates and utilizes various nutrients from food. Eastern, sub continent, tropical, Northern European, or notably Arctic peoples have radically different body systems when it comes to food.
Thank you, Chris, for sharing your story!
I'm of the mind that no animal must die so that I may live. 40+ years w/o meat. (Tho recently, I have added eggs).
But be it known, that THE most comprehensive study ever done on eating says a plant based diet is the healthiest. ("The China Study.").
Watch YTs of Dr T Colin Campbell. He's 91 years old, still speaking his message & even working on more books.
Please explain to me, why this is a reasonable response to a personal experience after all.
"A personal experience has the advantage of absolute certainty." (Arthur Schopenhauer)
It simply makes no sense to question a personal experience in any way. (I will refer to this in my next article.)
I appreciate your sharing your perspective.
My next article addresses your argument about animals having to die for us to have food.
Of course, I am familiar with the China Study. As a mathematician, my judgement is: It is a totally worthless.
Firstly, it is an OBSERVATIONAL study from which one CANNOT conclude anything reasonable. You would need CLINICAL studies.
Secondly, even clinical studies are almost impossible to conduct in this area, because there are just way too many variables involved. You would need to isolate variables, such as individual foods, then have sufficiently large test groups just for that. And since you can't separate the effects of nutrition from the effects of exercise and mindset, you would need to make sure everyone within a test group does the same amount of exercise and shares the same mindset, etc. Without this, it is IMPOSSIBLE to draw ANY reasonable conclusions.
The China-Oxford-Cornell Study of which this is based has value regardless of observational variables. Clinical studies-yes-would be great!
I don't think Dr T Colin Campbell, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell, Richard Peto of the University of Oxford, and Li Junyao of the China Cancer Institute others involved would agree with your assessment of their studies as worthless!
I am not preaching to others re what they want to ingest. I normally sidestep this discussion, as like other hot topics-vaccines or guns or ____, there are some very angry people who enjoy aggressively pouncing upon anyone who has a different outlook.
Being a mathematician who once gave up meat, I'm sure you have heard all the quotes, but I will end with one I wholeheartedly agree.
"As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
Pythagoras
The key question is: do you want to know the truth about the China Study, or do you want to believe in it so that you have support for your belief system? Your choice.
If you want the truth, then you must look at it critically and ALSO look at evidence that it is not what it claims it is. (Thesis and anti-thesis.) Here are four links to articles that present evidence that the study is very poor research:
1) https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/the-china-study-myth/#gsc.tab=0
2) https://deniseminger.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/
3) https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-china-study-revisited/
4) https://daveasprey.com/the-china-study-diet-criticism-vegan/
As I said, I am more than interested to have a CONSTRUCTIVE conversation about this topic.
The value of the China Study is NOT what people say it is, simply because it is an observational study. Of course, its authors would not agree with my assessment.
Unfortunately, statistics is misused widely. A group of mathematicians once investigated the articles published in one of the leading scientific journals of oncology ... and found that one third of the conclusions were unfounded based on the published data. This excludes cases were unwanted data was suppressed, which, unfortunately, is a common practice.
I love constructive conversations when there is disagreement. Do you have a degree in mathematics so that we can talk professionally about this?
I have been a vegetarian since 1963. I am in perfect health. Don't have digestion issues, have regular bowel movements and ensure a balanced diet, proper exercise, and sufficient sleep and rest. So, saying that a vegetarian diet is ultimately unhealthy is a crock.
With all due respect, but either you can't READ, or you can't UNDERSTAND, or you can't think LOGICALLY, ... or you're just a destructive crock seeking a fight. You misquoted me. I did NOT use the word "ultimately" nor the word "unhealthy."
I stated VERY CLEARLY that I write about a PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. I even quoted Arthur Schopenhauer saying "The personal experience has the advantage of absolute certainty." I wrote "Today I know – from experience ... A vegetarian diet is malnutrition."
I KNOW what I experienced; and I shared my experience. Only an utterly arrogant and condescending person can call someone's personal experience a crock.
I'm glad for you that a vegetarian diet has worked for you up to today. But this does NOT prove it is healthy. This does NOT mean it will continue to work for you. I suggest you study the science philosopher Karl Popper ... a million examples can't prove a conjecture; but a single counterexample disproves it. I am proof that the conjecture "A vegetarian diet is healthy" is wrong. Full stop. Simple logic.
I felt in perfect health and didn't have digestive issues for 25 years; I know many people who made the same experience; some of them crashed earlier than after 25 years. Maybe you have good genes that allow you to go longer. Maybe you will crash in two years. You don't KNOW. You KNOW only your past; the future has yet to unfold.
But again this was just your experience and not a universal truth. I know people in my country who are Brahmins and eating animalsl food is forbidden for them . I find them to be intelligent as well as physically strong.b
PS: How can these people be truly intelligent when they submit to a set of rules? Any set of rules is not natural. Nature is truthfulness; everything else is untruthful. If these people were truly intelligent, they would see that they are unfree (by these rules) and they would free themselves.
Here's my take on intelligence:
“Why and How We Lose Our Innate Intelligence – and Can Regain It”:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bernhardexplores/p/why-and-how-we-lose-our-innate-intelligence?r=3oqs68&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Here's my take on freedom:
“There is Only One True Freedom”:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bernhardexplores/p/there-is-only-one-true-freedom?r=3oqs68&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I agree with that but at the same time I feel , isn't life too short to actually make all our beliefs from scratch??? I mean I think a lot of times it is easier to just follow some rules until they stop serving you I guess ...
The trouble is, you never know FOR SURE if rules from outside are helpful or harmful. My 36 years as a vegetarian are ample proof. With all the resulting damage to my body I wished I had NOT followed this set of rules ...
With all due respect, but are you capable of READING after all? I wrote: "... I am only sharing my personal experiences and thoughts."
Yes I'm sorry if I offended you in anyway. That wasn't my intention.
No problem, I'm not offended. As a scientist, I'm just a "hard" discussion partner. I follow the motto: "Be soft to people and hard in the matter."
;)
I appreciate you said that! :)