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Are we meat eaters or vegetarians?


Edward Smith
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  • Jason Stein

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  • Adrien Godet

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  • Joshua Naterman

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  • SamSpaiser

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Thanks for the comments guys. I'd like to know what else that guy eating the oranges was eating because my dentist has seen improvements in my teeth in the last few years after shifting my diet to fresh fruits and vegetables. Spot on about mattering what type of workout one does; I was referring to eating fruit after doing an intense workout that depletes muscle glycogen and to eat a piece of fruit to restore it during that 1 hour window of time for optimal recovery. Granted, it's just what I've read from a handful of sources, and I haven't actually looked into it in depth, so I will not fervently support any side.

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I'd like to know what else that guy eating the oranges was eating...

He ate nothing else but oranges.

Also had one acquaintance subsist on mono-fruitarian diet of melons, another acquaintance on nothing but bananas.

To top of glycogen stores? Yams, sweet potatoes. Maybe melon, berries. The problem with taking in carbs post-workout is that while it increases insulin, it also decreases growth hormone expression. On the other hand, protein also increases insulin, growth hormone, and provides a much more anabolic effect.

It depends on your goals and your current condition. Are you above or below 12%BF? 12-10%? 10-8%? Below 8% Where do you need to be for your chosen activity? What phase of training? Etc, etc. Maybe horking a banana is not in fact in your best interest.

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Jason,

Are you suggesting he ate a diet solely of oranges? For how long? If not, then the other foods he ate even the day before, or a week before, would most certainly affect the digestion and absorption of the oranges. If the former is the case, then, for the record, I do not endorse a diet of only 1 food. Over the course of a year I might try over 150 different fruits, depending on where I am, sometimes over 200. And as far as vegetables go, easily over 50, maybe even 70 or 80 different kinds. I once interned on a farm that grew 350 different types of fruit. I believe in simplicity at each meal (mono fruit meals are terrific) but variety over the course of the year, and I do believe in vegetables as well, not just fruits. Sure, if you want some overt fat here and there, no worries, but I wouldn't go crazy, because from what I've seen it hinders performance and makes one sluggish in large amounts because it tends to linger in the GI tract.

You may be absolutely right about decreasing growth hormone expression. I'd love for you to send me a paper on that if you have access to one. That could be a good thing and a bad thing. I would guess that reducing growth hormone expression would keep cell mitosis in check. On the flip side, as you're suggesting, it would prevent muscle hypertrophy, or greatly slow down the process. I was 7% bf last I checked, but that was a while ago, and I may have increased a bit. I'd like to stay below 9% and just increase my muscle mass as much as possible, but I'm willing to be patient and let my body take whatever time it needs. I hear you totally though, and I think life's just full of trade offs, isn't that part of evolution after all?

I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread, and highly respect the opinions of the athletes on this board, just so all of you know and I wasn't misleading anyone to think otherwise. I'm here because my goal is to become as fit as possible through gymnastics and some other supplementary training I do with balance/stability/neurotraining.

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Joshua Naterman

Oh, the effect of carbohydrates on growth hormone is well known. If I'm not mistaken, the problem is actually that INSULIN inhibits growth hormone, and carbs inherently elicit insulin secretion. So there's no way around it. I might be wrong about the role insulin has to play in the whole process, but search for "carbohydrates and growth hormone" on google. You'll get more than you can read :)

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Joshua Naterman

Inhibitors of GH secretion include:

* somatostatin from the periventricular nucleus [12]

* circulating concentrations of GH and IGF-1 (negative feedback on the pituitary and hypothalamus)[2]

* hyperglycemia[7]

* glucocorticoids[13]

In addition to control by endogenous and stimulus processes, a number of foreign compounds (xenobiotics such as drugs and endocrine disruptors) are known to influence GH secretion and function.[14]

This was the most concise list I have found, but it appears that high levels of blood sugar directly inhibit HGH.

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Are you suggesting he ate a diet solely of oranges?

I'm not suggesting, I'm stating as fact that for at least 3 months this guy ate nothing but oranges. The other acquaintance ate nothing but bananas for 6 weeks. Yet another acquaintance ate nothing but watermelon for at least 3 months. As I mentioned before, these are eating disorders, which are a common-enough occurrence in the raw and vegan communities.

Also, you feel sluggish when you eat fat because your stomach is filled with fibrous and therefore more difficult to digest fruits.

Are you over 30? Over 25? A 7% BF is not impressive at 22 or 23 or even 24 (34 or 44 is a different story), and I would submit you are at 7% BF in spite of your diet, not because of it. I also submit that if you had a 34-year-old client who hired you to become stronger to perform gymnastic-based skills as well as look good naked, a raw vegan diet would absolutely fail to do any of those three things for a host of reasons, chief among them that people almost universally fail to maintain hypocaloric or starvation diets.

If I can paraphrase Dr. Kurt Harris, if the common element of all healthy populations is animal products, how can it be that any plant that was not universally available is essential to health?

It's not that I don't eat fruit or vegetables, or think that one can't or shouldn't eat them. They're just not essential, or magic, and in my experience, unless one's food choices are about ethics of factory farming, the rationale behind strictly fruit or raw-based diets is almost always faith-based.

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Slizzardman, I think you're right about insulin affecting growth hormone, that sounds very familiar, I think I may have even learned that in a standard basic nutrition course. This sounds like it makes more sense than the sugar directly. GREAT video about the pseudo planche push-ups, by the way.

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Sam,

Obviously you can tell I've been exposed to the extreme edges of alternative food philosophies, and have come away with a negative view of some of them for a host of reasons --- none of this to diminish your experience and journey. Best of luck with your training.

jason

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Jason, there are indeed, a lot of raw food/irresponsible food-related fanatics out there. I try not to associate myself with those people. Many of them do choose harmful and destructive diets. If after a given period of time, if my diet and other lifestyle factors are not working to achieve my goals, I will most certainly try something else, if not then I would be a walking definition of insanity, which I would hope to be slightly better than. I'm 19. What body fat level would you hope to see in me? I wasn't quite sure of the point you were trying to make. Slizzardman, I didn't see anything related to blood sugar in what you listed about GH; glucocorrticoids are stress related hormones, so I'm not sure if you were referring to them in some connection that I missed.

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Yes, it's actually the insulin which is the problem. ALL foods elicit some sort of an insulin response, but protein and fats also release glucagon (the yin to insulins yang) which is a mobilization hormone so it in a sense cancels the insulin out, the amount of insulin released when eating meats, etc is also very small. There are exceptions to carbs being the cause of insulin spikes. The proteins in milk being one.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Adrien Godet

Gentlemen,

Could you help me make sense of the statement that it takes 500,000 years for a specie to evolve (i.e. in my understanding for the DNA to become significantly different from a statistical point of view).

For example, how is the great variation in lactose intolerance from one country to the other explained in this light ?

Also would you agree that looking at DNA proximity between species is very misleading because the distance between two genetic code is evaluated without weighting by the importance of genes in the life of a given specie?

Edit: Lactose intolerance seems to be mostly inherited from the childhood environment. This makes answering the question "on what amount of nutrient will an individual from a certain country thrive the most?" even more complex.

Coming back to my first question, there are more obvious genetic differences among the population that are not (or are they?) 500,000 old. For example, skin color.

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Emil Brannmark

Just wanted to pop in and note that having perfect lab results is pretty irrelevant, as long as we're talking about standard lab tests like fasting glucose, LDL, triglycerides etc. If you're not obese and working out frequently you should have perfect values on these tests in your twenties regardless of diet, and if you don't you're probably screwed genetically. If we start talking high-sensitive CRP, then maybe you could see some differences with eg paleo. The significance of this is yet unclear, however.

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[T]here are more obvious genetic differences among the population that are not (or are they?) 500,000 old. For example, skin color.

Adrien,

The traits that distinguish us as hominids are 5-8 million years old, and have not changed since then.

Homo sapiens have made specific genetic adaptations in the last 200,000 years; skin tone, lactose tolerance, and disease resistance are a few examples of this.

However, from an ancestral diet standpoint, homo sapiens' metabolic, digestive and hormonal systems have not evolved or even adapted sufficiently in the last 10,000 years, hence the current pandemic of diseases of civilization.

I have read (and will link when I find the time) that the estimated amount of total genetic adaptation in humans from their ancestors is estimated at .02%. That is point-oh-2 percent.

best,

jason

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Adrien Godet

Thanks Jason.

Not being an expert on this topic and reading quickly, I had concluded from the following source: http://backintyme.com/essays/?p=4 that human skin tone adaptation started a long time ago but was most important during the 12000 years, roughly the same time agriculture started.

I fully believe in the evolutionary argument to decide what fondations are best for a good diet. However I wonder how much epigenetic (eg. DNA methylation) adaptations that could have happened over the last 10000 years matter.

PS: quote from the above reference

"This essay has offered falsifiable explanations that exploit recent genetic and anthropological findings to suggest that Europeans are unique because their diet became uniquely cereal-based and so deficient in vitamin D."

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Adrien,

It'd be more helpful for you to define "matter" in a real sense. What is your context?

It's interesting too because the epigenetic adaptation that allows for dairy consumption as well as rice may well be a maladaptation. The genes in your body, which are the result of billions of years of selection, don't care about your health, wellness or fitness. They just want to be transmitted.

best,

jason

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The usual evolutionary argument is that to know what humans are adapted to, we should look at our distant past (between 3m.y.a.-10000y.a.) rather than recent.

I have not seen the relevance of recent epigenetic adaptations discussed. It might well be that we did adapt to agriculture and going back to diets similar to paleolithic is actually worse (long term health-wise) than a pre-industrial world diet.

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Joshua Naterman

Adrien, just so you know, the time it takes for skin color to change on a genetic level(black people to become white, or whites to become black, etc) is estimated to be 20,000-30,000 years. That's only one gene I believe, and skin color is pretty important to health based on environmental conditions like food availablility and sunlight intensity/duration along with skin exposure as far as vitamin D production is concerned, which we need.

I can say that, for me, as a life-long grain eater and milk drinker(quarter to half gallon a day on average for probably 15-20 years at least) that as I have switched off of grains and only used milk to enhance training results as opposed to using it as a regular source of energy I have seen better performance, felt better, healed faster, and seem to be getting more defined. I am only one man, and I was at elite levels of fitness on grains, so I know I am not one of those people who are allergic or whatever, but I still feel better now. I would have been even better than I was, I think, if I had eaten differently. Who knows though, the past can not be revisited. All I can say is that I, a person who did extremely well on meat, pasta, and milk, am seeing better results with meats, cruciferous veggies, and sweet potatoes.

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It might well be that we did adapt to agriculture.

The evidence does not suggest this, and in fact suggests the opposite. Cancer, diabetes, hypertension, coronary disease, stroke, Alzheimer dementia, arthritis, and autoimmune disorders --- these are referred to in the medical community as the diseases of civilization because they do not exist in paleolithic cultures.

Again, confusion arises. It's not that we should live or eat like cavemen. At least I don't want to. Choose some traditional practices that have a foundation in modern medical science, and that dovetail with evolutionary reasoning.

best,

jason

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Joshua Naterman

We all ate pretty close to paleo until around 60 years ago, you know. When we started eating lots of processed carbs and margerine we started having these health problems.

It appears that the efforts of the health food industry to get people to eat less processed foods and sweeteners have impacted sales enough to where there are now commercials by the corn refiners of america to try and get people to use products with high fructose corn syrup! I couldn't believe it.

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Slizzardman,

It'd be a little more accurate to say that many people (but not all) ate pretty close to 'paleo' until about 150 years ago, when the Industrial Revolution clicked into full swing and the way food was processed, packaged, and sold began to radically change. But you're right, the scale and magnitude really ramped up in the years following World War II.

I'm not making a value judgment on this, either, by the way --- cheap calories have made many things possible, it's just that now we're having to deal with the consequences.

best,

jason

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Joshua Naterman

Yea, I suppose that's a more accurate timeline for the beginning of all this. :P I was more thinking of the introduction of margarine, trans fats, and the high fructose corn syrup, along with lots of sweets.

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Once again, I am not an expert, but all the information I have seen indicates that the diets of dominant civilizations of the Neolithic (from 10000 BCE) were mostly based on cereal/grains. These civilizations were not showing the degenerative diseases of today.

Clearly diets in the Western world changed a lot over the last 200 years and, without debate, not for the best.

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Once again, I am not an expert, but all the information I have seen indicates that the diets of dominant civilizations of the Neolithic (from 10000 BCE) were mostly based on cereal/grains. These civilizations were not showing the degenerative diseases of today.

Clearly diets in the Western world changed a lot over the last 200 years and, without debate, not for the best.

With the onset of the neolithic period, the fossil evidence shows that people became shorter in height and lifespan, and the teeth greater dental carries. Infant mortality increased.

Shorter height and more cavities certainly shows that the introduction of grains displaced more robust food choices from the paleolithic. Shorter lifespan and infant mortality can also be explained by animal domestication and diseases that came along with it. Furthermore, reliance on crops was a less consistent source of food compared to the knowledge of foraging. Crops are more prone to failure.

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Good post.

Regarding dental caries, if my memory is correct, the chapters of the book "Nutrition and physical degeneration" presenting isolated populations in Switzerland and Scotland in the 1930s are an account of a cereal based diet in a healthy population with naturally very little dental caries.

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