VEGAN THREAD is ressurected 4 lulz

BigBadOrc · Post by **BigBadOrc** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:57 pm

It's been interesting to me how much easier it is to find healthy foods now that I'm vegan. Well, I pretty much had to change grocery stores to find good vegan food.. but there's really a lot of healthy snacks out there that I'd actually eat that are vegan. It was always hard for me to find snacks that I'd eat at like a regular stores. I mean, slim jims and potatoe chips? c'mon :\

chocobojoe · Post by **chocobojoe** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:11 am

chips n salsa

malictus · Post by **malictus** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:55 pm

BigBadOrc wrote:Lulz Image:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/fit.na ... esity.map/

That is a rather depressing statistic. However, US life expectancy increased by around 4 years in the same time period (source), so you could argue that while we may be getting fatter, we're still living longer!

SoDeepPolaris · Post by **SoDeepPolaris** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:55 pm

malictus wrote:
BigBadOrc wrote:Lulz Image:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/fit.na ... esity.map/
That is a rather depressing statistic. However, US life expectancy increased by around 4 years in the same time period (source), so you could argue that while we may be getting fatter, we're still living longer!

Because of our medical care.

Socialized medicine get outta hurrrrr.

malictus · Post by **malictus** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:14 pm

SoDeepPolaris wrote:Because of our medical care.

Socialized medicine get outta hurrrrr.

You're probably right, but it's still a good demonstration of the way that statistics can easily be twisted to fit any given theory. Fatter people = longer life! By quoting only those two statistics I can make that sound plausible!

BigBadOrc · Post by **BigBadOrc** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:21 pm

@malictus: Wow lol.. that is a 559 page document! I'll take your word for it that we're living 4 years longer than we were in the 90s. That's not surprising that we're improving over the past as medicine gets better... but how do we compare to other countries today?

The statistics I showed earlier were rather shocking -

USA #1 obesity
North America #1 cancer
USA #45 in terms of life expectancy
USA #37 in terms of health care

And I just checked out a really cool site where you can get tons of statistics by country or by year. It's a huge database.

So I did a quick search on meat consumption per capita and found USA is #4, behind Denmark, Luxembourg, and Cyprus. Doesn't really prove anything, I know ~_~

SoDeepPolaris wrote: Because of our medical care.

Socialized medicine get outta hurrrrr.

That would seem to make the opposite argument. Since we don't have socialized medicine, the people who don't have health care are more likely to die early, thus bringing our life expectancy down.

Fluffyumpkins · Post by **Fluffyumpkins** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:38 pm

BigBadOrc wrote:
Fluffyumpkins wrote:That map is pretty good. You can't really pin it on dairy or meat though. I blame the $1 value menu.
Actually, I can:)

Here's a quote from this article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:

"In the present study, the mean weight, BMI, and prevalence of overweight and obesity were highest among omnivores compared with semivegetarians, lactovegetarians, and vegans. In a multivariate, adjusted logistic regression model, vegans had a significantly lower risk of overweight or obesity than did omnivores, as did lactovegetarians and semivegetarians. A reduced risk of overweight or obesity was also observed when we recategorized women as actual lactovegetarians on the basis of reported dietary intake on the FFQ rather than on the basis of whether they identified themselves as a vegetarian."

Obviously, this is not the only factor in determining obesity, but if this paper can be believed, than it IS a significant contributor !

So you're implying that people eat more meat and drink more milk than they did 20 years ago? I don't buy that.

BigBadOrc · Post by **BigBadOrc** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:49 pm

Hm. That's a good point, I'm not sure why the obesity levels grew so much in the past 20 years. Guess I didn't notice that about the map

Edit: Looking at the statistics site I referenced earlier, in 1980 the meat consumption per capita per year in US was 108.1, and it steadily grew to 124.8 in 2002. So I'm sure there are lots of other factors, all I was really trying to say was that meat consumption definitely contributes to being overweight.

Post by Ho » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:06 pm

BigBadOrc wrote:all I was really trying to say was that meat consumption definitely contributes to being overweight.

I disagree. Perhaps eating too much meat (or too much anything, for that matter) and being inactive...these seem to be common trends in American society today.

But just eating meat alone doesn't contribute to being overweight. I've eaten meat all my life. I'm pretty sure no scale would classify me as overweight.

SoDeepPolaris · Post by **SoDeepPolaris** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:35 pm

malictus wrote:
SoDeepPolaris wrote:Because of our medical care.

Socialized medicine get outta hurrrrr.
You're probably right, but it's still a good demonstration of the way that statistics can easily be twisted to fit any given theory. Fatter people = longer life! By quoting only those two statistics I can make that sound plausible!

Most definitely. That's why I think some sort of statistics class should be a required class in high school. Too many people see numbers or hear people talk about numbers and automatically assume truth.

BigBadOrc wrote:That would seem to make the opposite argument. Since we don't have socialized medicine, the people who don't have health care are more likely to die early, thus bringing our life expectancy down.

You can twist words to make it fit whatever argument you want. That's the reality of language and statistics.

We are one of the most medically advanced nations in the world. We can do quadruple bypasses, artificial heart transplants, chemo, you name it. Yes the cost of new treatments is increasing drastically and yes it can be hard for some to afford it. The system is flawed, I know. However, socializing medicine won't fix it. I would much rather have my choice in private practitioners over government subsidized care. The capitalist incentive for innovation would greatly diminish in a socialized system.

BigBadOrc · Post by **BigBadOrc** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:45 pm

@SoDeepPolaris: Well, health care is kind of off topic :\ But I'd still say that our current system is NOT set up so that the companies with the best health care get the most money, as it should be. Instead, it is set up so that the insurance companies who can deny the most claims make the most money.

I agree that it is possible to misinterpret numbers to support an invalid hypothesis. However, the answer is not to throw our hands in the air and say numbers and science means nothing

@Ho: That's why I bolded the "lots of other factors" in my statement. If you like I can find you a skinny person who never exercises at all and say that a sedentary lifestyle doesn't contribute to being overweight either.

Post by **MonMotha** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:49 pm

Ah, many of you are performing a classic fallacy amongst those not overly scientifically inclined: you are inferring causation from mere correlation. Repeat after me: correlation does not imply causation. Correlation is pretty much necessary, but certainly not sufficient for causation.

Is obesity correlated with consumption of meat? Perhaps. I'm sure plenty of other things are, too. Does consumption of meat cause obesity? I can think of several counterexamples using individuals on this website alone, and a single counterexample is sufficient to disprove a hypothesis.

Now, anything taken to excess is likely to be bad. That's pretty much the definition of excess. I try not to eat anything in excess. I'm not sure that I always accomplish that goal, but I think I come close. Oh, and animals are tasty :)

Post by Ho » Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:00 pm

BigBadOrc wrote:@Ho: That's why I bolded the "lots of other factors" in my statement. If you like I can find you a skinny person who never exercises at all and say that a sedentary lifestyle doesn't contribute to being overweight either.

Yes, I saw that. But you also said that meat consumption definitely contributes to being overweight. That was what I was disagreeing with.

hascoolnickname · Post by **hascoolnickname** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:36 pm

Eating definitely contributes to being overweight, but not everyone who eats is overweight.

jk you're all obese =[

BigBadOrc · Post by **BigBadOrc** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:38 pm

@MonMotha: yes, that's exactly what I mean. I'm saying that eating meat does not immediately imply that you are overweight, and that there are lots of contributing factors. For example, the Atkins diet. Lots of meat, extremely unhealthy, and you may lose weight in the process.

@Ho: So are you saying that if all other factors are constant and we just focus on vegetarian vs omnivore that you will find both populations have equal probability of becoming overweight? Because I can find several published papers that indicate that vegetarians are less likely to be overweight. True, vegetarians may tend to lead healthier lives and there may be some noise in the data, but I think if being a vegetarian correlates with living a healthy life, then that is excellent.