Since this is the Health and Fitness section of 2+2, a site founded on the idea of figuring out optimal lines in poker, I figure this thread could have some potential, maybe even some life changing or even life saving potential.

First lets go over what's acceptable posting in this thread. I hate rules so it's going to be very liberal. Here you are free to ask questions/debate about a Whole Food Plant Based diet (WFPB). You can even blog it up and post WFPB recipes or if you had a WFPB meal just tell us what you ate. You can also post WFPB videos here you liked, or talk about a WFPB documentary you saw on Netflix or something.

Ok, now let's talk about a WFPB diet. What exactly does that mean. Well my way of explaining it to people is to first look at all the foods we shouldn't eat. Take all the foods that cause or are linked to cancer, heart disease, and other diseases: Beef, pork, fish, chicken, turkey, milk, cheese, eggs, I.E. animal products in general, refined grains, added sugar, too much sodium, free oils, and other processed junk in general. Don't eat them. Now take all the foods that fight and prevent cancer, heart disease and other diseases: Whole grains, legumes (beans, lentils, peas, etc), fruits, vegetables, fungus (basically talking about cooked Mushrooms and nutritional yeast), nuts, seeds, herbs and spices. These are the foods you eat. The premise being the more WFPB centered your diet is, the more healthy you will be.

For those interested in learning more about this diet, a great resource is nutritionfacts.org. IMO it is the best site on the internet when it comes to evidenced based nutrition. A great book to read on this topic would be: "How Not To Die" by Michael Greger M.D. For those who have Netflix, a great starting point on a WFPB journey would be to watch (for free) "Forks Over Knives".

A little background on me: I switched to a WFPB diet in the beginning of January 2017. Watching "Forks Over Knives" was a major inspiration. In the first three months I lost 30lbs (went from 5'9" 178lbs to 148lbs) which put me back at my high school weight (I was 38 years old at the time, now 40), and I also had erectile dysfunction issues that completely went away (Sorry viagra or in my case Cialis). The weight has stayed off and I feel great in general.

Ok let us begin!

dosing matters. Let's start with that.

Are we allowed to cite research that isn't distorted through interpretation and dissemination by a vegan zealot that doesn't even lift, or is that verboten?

Optimal diets include lots of animals. Dr Greger looks like he might fall over and break all his bones from a stiff wind.

What is this trash? Billions of generations have already proven (and science has backed this up) that the optimal diet consists of cigarettes, whiskey, and donuts.

I am immediately skeptical as soon as anyone starts using the word optimal when talking about any complex system, including the human body. Primitive people around the world have thrived on a variety of diets. There simply isn't any one best way to eat. Anyone promoting the "optimal diet" or "optimal exercise plan" or optimal anything is typically full of ****. They are using selling something, oversimplifying a terribly complex subject and are biased in their use of sources.

I kind of wish that vegans would just stick to the sound argument: that eating animal products is unethical. Pretty hard to argue against that, and if you persuade people of that much then the health factor becomes irrelevant.

One simply has to look at the teeth of an animal to determine what its diet should be mostly.

+1

Be vegan for ethical reasons. Be vegan for environmental reasons. Tough to argue against either purpose.

But claiming that a species that has eaten meat for its entire existence isn't "meant to" just makes veganism sound maniacal.

I don't want to totally go off the rails with mockery from the start. I've read a few criticisms of nutritionfacts.org (great pull by that guy to get that URL, btw, sounds very official and scientific), but I haven't read enough of the source material to really criticize it myself.

ILP99 should also be commended for improving his health. He lost a good deal of fat, feels better, gets boners. Yay for him.

However, to credit that all to WFPB seems specious at best. Maybe you were depressed. Maybe parts of the diet were really effective for you (calorie restriction, more nutrient dense), and the subsequent health improvements helped your mental state, and the ED cleared up.

But who's to say the same couldn't be achieved with adequate intake of fruits, veggies, etc. while also eating some animal protein and rice? Or what if you weren't a desk jockey, but had a physically demanding job, and the low calories and lack of protein and starches had you dragging ass all the time?

So perhaps it is optimal for you, today, at this stage of your life. When you get even older, and more anabolicly resistant, maybe upping the protein will help a bit. Diets can vary wildly. Humans operate pretty well on a wide array of diets.

Just as a last aside, OP's last paragraph can be seen for basically any fad diet. Google carnivore diet and read about all the same things. Losing weight, increased libido, better mental state, etc etc.

+1

OP is deluded and annoying as hell

ILOVEPOKER929,
Every once in a while a poster drops by and thinks they can drop a knowledge bomb itf and that they have THE ONE ANSWER™ and if everyone just knew! and it usually doesn't work. Maybe this is the time though! Probably not. Also lol vegans. K.

That's awesome, congrats. I'd guess the most likely cause of this was you raised your Testosterone and lowered your Estrogen by reducing your body fat, but who knows. It's all really complicated. Did you notice any other changes or symptom alleviation?

I've learned first hand this year that for as much as "we" (science/doctors) understand about the body and medicine, there is infinitely more that we don't.

I get that you've found something that worked for you and you want to share that. This diet may be optimal for you and many others, but I don't believe there's one thing that's optimal for everyone. For example I've found that I'm sensitive to too many carbs (even slow acting) within the first 4-6hrs of waking up. However, I can eat all the carbs I want later in the day and it doesn't effect me. It's a lot of trial and error.

I think this is largely the key. As long as people are getting the nutrients they need form a particular diet and it helps compliance with weight loss then go for it imo.

Ew

Huh.

These are the times I miss Thremp the most.

I don't think it's very relevant. I mean yes technically dosing matters but that's not a very interesting thing to say. I think we can all surmise that eating broccoli all day or eating mangos all day is not a good path to optimal health. And I strongly suspect that eating a pepperoni pizza once a year or smoking one cigarette a year is not gonna hurt your health in itself.

The general message tho is everything in moderation. Now I actually despise the phrase "everything in moderation" because it's basically food corporation boilerplate that's been used to brainwash people to eat things that are not good for them. "Everything in moderation" only applies to a person putting health promoting food in their mouth. For example, cheese and ice cream are very bad for you. Saying someone can eat cheese or ice cream as long as it's in moderation would be as absurd as saying it's ok to take heroin in moderation. Once we know something is bad for us there is only one correct dose: None. But the phrase "everything in moderation" works fine once we're eating healthy food cuz yea, it's not a good idea to eat walnuts all day.

Where can the criticisms of nutrition facts be found?

The primary criticism is that its run by the vegan "zealot" Dr. Michael Greger and therefore everything subjective on the site will be vegan focused....and those that are objective need to be scrutinized to see if data is being left out that might skew the numbers in veganisms favor.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/dea...e-by-veganism/

PJ,

Googling "dr michael greger criticism" will get you to anything not yet posted thus far.

Guy looks super healthy

Not for humans. When humans eat animals bad things happen.

Meat

Chicken

Turkey

Pork

Fish

Here are some other clues that we shouldn't be eating animals:



Vegans are also the only group with healthy BMIs:

Source.

What about eating just a little meat?:

He is a doctor, not an athlete. And there are plenty of examples of strong athletes thriving on a plant-based diet. Google is your friend.

Vegan Powerlifting Champ Smashes Four Records At Major Competition

Why America’s Best Olympic Weightlifter Is Vegan

There is a whole documentary out or coming out by James Cameron about this subject: Plant based athletes thriving.



Despite the confusion and deceit continually manufactured by meat and diary corporations ("Milk does a body good!", "Gotta get your protein!"), more and more people, including the best athletes in the world are following the science and staying away from meat. The revolution has already begun. You just don't know it yet.

I think your initial skepticism is healthy. But I also think if you follow the evidence it will lead to eating a diet consisting of mostly unprocessed plants. The very fact that most Americans are overweight and sick eating an animal based diet is a decent clue that something is very wrong.

Or the very fact that there has only been one diet proven to reverse heart disease, shouldn't that be compelling evidence enough:



The first landmark study proving that a plant based diet can reverse heart disease was by Dr Dean Ornish published back in 1990, in one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, the Lancet. On a rational planet this would've been seen as one of the greatest discoveries in world history. Other doctors, like Dr. Esselstyn, have also demonstrated the same thing.

A moderate calorie, high protein, moderate fat and carbohydrate diet with a minimum amount of physical activity is proven to lower the risk of all-cause mortality. Going vegan usually results in weight loss and healthier blood work just because it restricts the fatty's ahem subject's choices and eating more moderately is inevitable. Also vegans tend to be fanatical about their diets and eat healthier just by virtue of being fanatical. If the world went vegan tomorrow, fatties would still fat, they'd just eat syrup sandwiches and ****. Where there's a will, there's a way.