Does anyone here have anything to say about Lierre Keith, who reports on a "vegetarian myth"?

[MrMickeysMom]

I don't post here often at all, and lately I've been re-entering my older recipes which I talk more about in cooking and baking. However, when starting to view this video on "peak moment tv", I found my jaw dropping on what this woman was saying.

Your opinions are valued and I may cross post this, but… I thought she sounded like she was full of crap.

Here's her interview about why vegetarianism is a myth, for you view- MMM

http://blip.tv/peak-moment-tv/the-vegetarian-myth-4897469

[Warren Stupidity]

1. how about "the myth is ...."?

[upaloopa]

2. So I have been a vegetation since 1994.

I am turning 68 in a few months. I am a bit over weight because I also like some hi calorie things and get sedentary for a while. I can get back to my correct weight by lowering calorie intake and exercising more. I do yoga, have a weight machine and an elliptical machine. I do yoga and meditate before work and use the exercise machines at night.
I do not have any major diseases no colesteral problems and my blood pressure is fine.
I think people need to experiment and find out what is right for them.
Eating a vegetarian diet is right for me.
All around me are meat eaters with any number of diseases that I think come from their diets. To me they think old age and disease is just what happens as if your life style has nothing to deal with it. I think it does.
My negatives in life are stress and depression. I have to constantly work on those.
I can't hardly stand to look at raw meat and the smell of it cooking makes me nauseous.
So I would not follow this woman's thinking for me.
We make choices and have to live with the consequences.
I am not concerned with what people did millions of years ago or the fact that some of my teeth are pointed. That doesn't make a case for me.
I don't tell people how to eat but they feel they need to tell me that I don't eat right.
My reply is I am not the one who is so over weight and has heart disease and blood pressure problems. They usually leave it there.

[MrMickeysMom]

3. Thank you, upaloopa… I can relate

I've been 90% vegetarian most of my adult life, best guess. During the cycle of the 1980's, the best recipes came from Moosewood cookbook -v- Laurel's Kitchen, but some old hippie things never die. All through it, I've been about 5 to 10's over my ideal weight and most of my stress is beat back by your type of exercise (I never did do Yoga long enough to stay with it).. Anyway…

I thought her attitude sucked big-time, but you put it in a nicer way.

Thanks!

[Warpy]

4. Looks like she traded one variety of fanatacism for another

and there's a huge amount of misinformation and disinformation in this video, especially about how healthy our ancestors were pre agriculture, when the earth finally warmed up after the ice age and allowed it. The average age at death was in the 30s and early 40s and it was death by old age.

This video exemplifies the statement "a little learning is a dangerous thing.

The best thing to do is eat what you like and what makes you feel good. I know healthy junk food junkies, even, although I can't recommend the diet. I know too many unhealthy ones.

I think Pollan says it best: "Eat food, mostly plants, and not too much." He suggests meat at half a pound per person per week, easy to do if you do stir fries, soups, and casseroles.

Some people feel better when they don't eat meat. They do get plant proteins and can complement these proteins to make them whole, all 8 essential amino acids we don't make present. The idea that cellulose prevents our accessing them is silly, that's what chewing is for.

Some people don't feel good if they don't have meat 3 times a day. My parents were in that group and lived to 89 and 94.

Most of us try to find a happy medium that helps us feel the best and that's all that's necessary.

[MrMickeysMom]

5. I thought about the "half a pound a week" for a moment...

I think I have fit into that category for a long time. I now see the benefits of the types of plant things I thought WERE being followed by medicine/botany (e.g., "healthy aging", Dr. Weiss research, which is a sort of anthropology of eating across the world). I agree with the adage "moderation". The cellulose explanation was a little too much and when I said, "Huh?"

My husband's grandma, who helped raise him, was like that group of you parents in terms of diet and lived to almost 95! She had one more quality passed on to him… feisty!

[SheilaT]

6. We evolved as omnivores.

Meaning we eat plants and animals.

I'm a happy and enthusiastic meat eater and at age 65 I don't have any of the debilities or aging stuff that almost everyone else this age seems to have. So going vegetarian or vegan is hardly necessary for me.

I am amazed at how many my age are old, think of themselves as old, and so on. It is true that aging per se brings on various stuff. The longer we live the greater the likelihood of getting this or that disease.

I can recommend the book Paleofantasy by Marlene Zuk for all who are interested in human evolution. It happens. It's continuing now, even as we speak. Part of the book is to point out that the idea that we should only eat like our distant ancestors not only does not understand ongoing human evolution, but doesn't ask the question: Which human ancestors? From exactly what time in our past?

To all who are happy vegetarians and vegans, I say, Good for you! But just as not everyone is glucose intolerant, not all of us do badly consuming meat.