I am a vegan since Dec. 9. I bought vegan fish sticks several times as my guilty pleasure and they taste great. Actually better than the real fish sticks, or at least not worse. (fish sticks are made of crap fish)
Anyway, the Framingham 10-year risk score WORSENED for animal eaters and IMPROVED for plant eaters, in the study. (it was higher in the group randomized to plants at baseline).
My vegan diet is an experiment an I will drop it if it does not work for me. But at this point, four months in, I kind of enjoy it
I went to a BBQ with beef patties and impossible burgers, had a taste of each. The impossible burger was... processed gluck, overly salted, flavor just so so. Impossible to like unless one is brain washed
I never liked fish sticks, but I wouldn't argue that vegetarian fish sticks may be any better in the health department. It's sort of the same argument regarding chicken nuggets- at the end of the day whether from meat or plants chicken nuggets probably isn't going to be good for you because it's just entirely processed.
I wasn't going to initially mention the Framingham score since a cursory examination suggested that anything below 10% is considered low so it does not mean much, but my point in mentioning it is the fact that there's a clear discrepancy between the animal and plant group to the extent that the plant group ate more carbs and would, based on biomarkers and preliminary measures, appear less healthy relative to the animal group so unless the researchers took this into account then they can't explicitly argue whether plant-based products are any better or worse than animal products. I generally don't find those changes too compelling and maybe it would have been better that I not include it in my criticism but it's more just suggesting that the authors don't properly account for the differences between the groups.
Note that even though the plant-based products have more carbs relative to animals the people in that group still ate fewer carbs after the 8 weeks, which raises a question of where exactly all those additional carbs came from.
Nothing against vegans or vegetarians as people can eat whatever they want, but what's important is that people gain a better understanding of the foods they eat. If it works for you then nothing wrong with that!
As more or less a vegan the last thing that I want to be doing at a restaurant is figuring out if they’ve given me fake meat or real meat, and if I cannot tell the difference easily…..
And I don’t like the taste of either as well.
I can’t stand those fake meat products that have appeared over the last few years normally. I certainly don’t buy them at the supermarket albeit the fake bacon strips are okayish and as my wife is not a vegie I might occasionally buy those to fry up for us both on a Sunday morning. Otherwise for burgers I either make the patty or use tempeh or occasionally tofu.
Finally two of these companies here in NZ have gone out of business in the last 6 months or so. I certainly won’t miss them. As Sadie says below there’s plenty of superior natural product like lentils, rice, greens, nuts & dried beans too I’d add.
That is something to consider since that would take into account that employees not accidentally mix foods up. It also doesn't help that some companies are making plant-based products more tolerable by adding things such as...animal products, so that will make it even more confusing for customers.
But I have seen that the fad may have gone out of fashion. It was probably propped up by the novelty but most people probably gave it up because of the lack of sustainability in one's diet. It's one of the issues with the study- how realistic is it to assume that people will eat these products 2-3 times a day?
Not sustainable, a hundred or more ingredients on the back of the packet, grown in a lab or mashed together from everything that you don’t want to eat. Good riddance.
Ugh.... the West is so fixated on food - in a bad way. In a 3rd world we would be happy to have real food - lentils, rice, greens, nuts.... you can hardly go out for a nice meal with friends or family without the subject of food dos and don'ts coming up.
I've noticed split peas that have been stored for a long time are almost impossible to tenderise even after lengthy soaking and pressure cooking, unless you presoak them overnight with a teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate dissolved in the water, after which they soften rapidly on boiling. In fact they then cook so quickly that they should not be pressure cooked unless you want them pluming in a mush out of the safety valve! That technique might be worth a try with old stocks of other legumes.
I've heard that generally any dried bean/legume will be more difficult to get tender the longer it sits around. Not sure of the details exactly but it's something I try to keep in mind when I see I have beans sitting around since pre-COVID.
Pintos are notorious for that... I will try it on my last little bag whose twin remained hard even after hours and hours. I had thought they kept for more like 5 yrs but alas, they did not.
For lentils - I've had no issue with them but then.... they don't last all that long in this house so at most I might find a yr old bag.
It's the irony that modernization has afforded people this much variety in diet. It's something that I've heard some vegans mention- they can only be vegan due to how modernized the world has become. Most people won't be able to sustain that lifestyle whether because animals may provide more nutrients or because they may not have access to alternatives.
we have lost our common sense and would benefit moving AWAY from processed foods for optimal health, because a diet rich in processed foods (anything that comes in a bag or a box) aka the standard American diet "SAD" (which IS sad) is associated with strokes, heart disease, obesity, DMII, and an increase risk for cancer.
The healthiest diets consume high amounts amount of veggies, then fruits, nuts/seeds, proteins (palm sized serving of meat), quality carbs in moderation, with minimal dairy and eggs (when people have major chronic disease/autoimmune, its cut out (this is an extremely cursory summary). Others say "eat the rainbow" (a colorful array of veggies) Reference Terry Wahls MD and her research, recently i attended a lecture of hers regarding MS- it was NINE cups of veggies/day. 9!! SAD tends to consume 1cup daily...).
Food is a powerful way to turn health around, I suggest readers look up the Mediterranean Diet (and modifications of it), free info available on Andrew Weil MD's website. Of course there is not one size fits all (my intention here is not to generate a food orthodoxy debate) but to highlight processed vs whole/unprocessed food, and highlight the benefits of the latter. thank you for writing this!
It is interesting to see how all over the place the discourse on diet is. The SAD diet is inherently bad and we should be eating more whole foods. Those are basics that we should strive for. But now as we criticize the SAD diet we see a lot of these different dietary movements such as keto, carnivore, people saying not to eat fruit because it has sugar, the argument over whether sugar or seed oils are inherently bad. The list goes on, and unfortunately the trend of alternative diets may make people miss the forest for the trees. Irrespective of whether seed oils are as bad as people argue if it's coming predominately from processed and fried foods maybe it's a good idea to avoid these foods as much as possible. It kind of solves the problem of seed oils and processed foods all in one go.
But now it just seems even more confusing and more difficult for people to really figure out what is the optimum diet when we really should just be focusing on having a generally good diet to start.
I still like the simple adage: "Eat real food. Not too much. Lots of variety."
Fake processed food, including fake meats, do not meet this standard.
People are addicted to convenience and to advertising. Fake meat is fake food and fake advertising in one convenient package. I prefer a homemade lentil/walnut burger any day.
It becomes more of a marketing gimmick when "plant-based" supersedes "processed". It doesn't matter if it came from something nutritious if it was destroyed to all heck in order to make it appear like something else. But it does seem like this is something almost fashionable more than practical.
Fashionable! Lol. All the woke stuff is fashionable, that's why none of it or increas sense. All this Save The Planet crap is fashionable, to the brainwashed monkey
I am a vegan since Dec. 9. I bought vegan fish sticks several times as my guilty pleasure and they taste great. Actually better than the real fish sticks, or at least not worse. (fish sticks are made of crap fish)
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Gardein-Golden-Plant-Based-Fishless-Filets-Vegan-10-1-oz-Frozen/46615899
Anyway, the Framingham 10-year risk score WORSENED for animal eaters and IMPROVED for plant eaters, in the study. (it was higher in the group randomized to plants at baseline).
My vegan diet is an experiment an I will drop it if it does not work for me. But at this point, four months in, I kind of enjoy it
I went to a BBQ with beef patties and impossible burgers, had a taste of each. The impossible burger was... processed gluck, overly salted, flavor just so so. Impossible to like unless one is brain washed
Yes, the burgers are so-so
I never liked fish sticks, but I wouldn't argue that vegetarian fish sticks may be any better in the health department. It's sort of the same argument regarding chicken nuggets- at the end of the day whether from meat or plants chicken nuggets probably isn't going to be good for you because it's just entirely processed.
I wasn't going to initially mention the Framingham score since a cursory examination suggested that anything below 10% is considered low so it does not mean much, but my point in mentioning it is the fact that there's a clear discrepancy between the animal and plant group to the extent that the plant group ate more carbs and would, based on biomarkers and preliminary measures, appear less healthy relative to the animal group so unless the researchers took this into account then they can't explicitly argue whether plant-based products are any better or worse than animal products. I generally don't find those changes too compelling and maybe it would have been better that I not include it in my criticism but it's more just suggesting that the authors don't properly account for the differences between the groups.
Note that even though the plant-based products have more carbs relative to animals the people in that group still ate fewer carbs after the 8 weeks, which raises a question of where exactly all those additional carbs came from.
Nothing against vegans or vegetarians as people can eat whatever they want, but what's important is that people gain a better understanding of the foods they eat. If it works for you then nothing wrong with that!
The dietary equivalent of fools gold.
As more or less a vegan the last thing that I want to be doing at a restaurant is figuring out if they’ve given me fake meat or real meat, and if I cannot tell the difference easily…..
And I don’t like the taste of either as well.
I can’t stand those fake meat products that have appeared over the last few years normally. I certainly don’t buy them at the supermarket albeit the fake bacon strips are okayish and as my wife is not a vegie I might occasionally buy those to fry up for us both on a Sunday morning. Otherwise for burgers I either make the patty or use tempeh or occasionally tofu.
Finally two of these companies here in NZ have gone out of business in the last 6 months or so. I certainly won’t miss them. As Sadie says below there’s plenty of superior natural product like lentils, rice, greens, nuts & dried beans too I’d add.
That is something to consider since that would take into account that employees not accidentally mix foods up. It also doesn't help that some companies are making plant-based products more tolerable by adding things such as...animal products, so that will make it even more confusing for customers.
But I have seen that the fad may have gone out of fashion. It was probably propped up by the novelty but most people probably gave it up because of the lack of sustainability in one's diet. It's one of the issues with the study- how realistic is it to assume that people will eat these products 2-3 times a day?
Not sustainable, a hundred or more ingredients on the back of the packet, grown in a lab or mashed together from everything that you don’t want to eat. Good riddance.
It’s actually another sign that the likes of the WEF & Gates are having problems instituting their dystopia on the West.
Ugh.... the West is so fixated on food - in a bad way. In a 3rd world we would be happy to have real food - lentils, rice, greens, nuts.... you can hardly go out for a nice meal with friends or family without the subject of food dos and don'ts coming up.
Lentils with Onions are awesome
Lentils with anything! I've got 25 pounds each of beluga, pink and green just in case supply lines disappear :)
Do they go bad? I had to throw out all my pinto beans stashed in 2020 due to them going bad and not softening from cooking
I've noticed split peas that have been stored for a long time are almost impossible to tenderise even after lengthy soaking and pressure cooking, unless you presoak them overnight with a teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate dissolved in the water, after which they soften rapidly on boiling. In fact they then cook so quickly that they should not be pressure cooked unless you want them pluming in a mush out of the safety valve! That technique might be worth a try with old stocks of other legumes.
Works for any bean. But split peas shouldn't be cooked in pressure cooker as they'll gum it up
Great tip! I'll try it today.
I've heard that generally any dried bean/legume will be more difficult to get tender the longer it sits around. Not sure of the details exactly but it's something I try to keep in mind when I see I have beans sitting around since pre-COVID.
Pintos are notorious for that... I will try it on my last little bag whose twin remained hard even after hours and hours. I had thought they kept for more like 5 yrs but alas, they did not.
For lentils - I've had no issue with them but then.... they don't last all that long in this house so at most I might find a yr old bag.
It's the irony that modernization has afforded people this much variety in diet. It's something that I've heard some vegans mention- they can only be vegan due to how modernized the world has become. Most people won't be able to sustain that lifestyle whether because animals may provide more nutrients or because they may not have access to alternatives.
we have lost our common sense and would benefit moving AWAY from processed foods for optimal health, because a diet rich in processed foods (anything that comes in a bag or a box) aka the standard American diet "SAD" (which IS sad) is associated with strokes, heart disease, obesity, DMII, and an increase risk for cancer.
The healthiest diets consume high amounts amount of veggies, then fruits, nuts/seeds, proteins (palm sized serving of meat), quality carbs in moderation, with minimal dairy and eggs (when people have major chronic disease/autoimmune, its cut out (this is an extremely cursory summary). Others say "eat the rainbow" (a colorful array of veggies) Reference Terry Wahls MD and her research, recently i attended a lecture of hers regarding MS- it was NINE cups of veggies/day. 9!! SAD tends to consume 1cup daily...).
Food is a powerful way to turn health around, I suggest readers look up the Mediterranean Diet (and modifications of it), free info available on Andrew Weil MD's website. Of course there is not one size fits all (my intention here is not to generate a food orthodoxy debate) but to highlight processed vs whole/unprocessed food, and highlight the benefits of the latter. thank you for writing this!
It is interesting to see how all over the place the discourse on diet is. The SAD diet is inherently bad and we should be eating more whole foods. Those are basics that we should strive for. But now as we criticize the SAD diet we see a lot of these different dietary movements such as keto, carnivore, people saying not to eat fruit because it has sugar, the argument over whether sugar or seed oils are inherently bad. The list goes on, and unfortunately the trend of alternative diets may make people miss the forest for the trees. Irrespective of whether seed oils are as bad as people argue if it's coming predominately from processed and fried foods maybe it's a good idea to avoid these foods as much as possible. It kind of solves the problem of seed oils and processed foods all in one go.
But now it just seems even more confusing and more difficult for people to really figure out what is the optimum diet when we really should just be focusing on having a generally good diet to start.
I still like the simple adage: "Eat real food. Not too much. Lots of variety."
Fake processed food, including fake meats, do not meet this standard.
People are addicted to convenience and to advertising. Fake meat is fake food and fake advertising in one convenient package. I prefer a homemade lentil/walnut burger any day.
It becomes more of a marketing gimmick when "plant-based" supersedes "processed". It doesn't matter if it came from something nutritious if it was destroyed to all heck in order to make it appear like something else. But it does seem like this is something almost fashionable more than practical.
Fashionable! Lol. All the woke stuff is fashionable, that's why none of it or increas sense. All this Save The Planet crap is fashionable, to the brainwashed monkey