Veggies promote mental sharpness

[govegan]

Veggies promote mental sharpness
Study finds that women who eat their greens have less decline overall

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER NEWS SERVICES

Here's another reason to eat your veggies: A new study suggests certain vegetables like broccoli and spinach may help older women keep their brains sharper.

Researchers found that women in their 60s who ate more cruciferous and green leafy vegetables than other women went on to show less overall decline over time on a bundle of tests measuring memory, verbal ability and attention.

Such foods include broccoli, cauliflower, romaine lettuce and spinach.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/182781_alzheimer20.html

How is this political?

Don't get me started. However, America's unnecessary dependence on dead animals and their by-products (both while living and dead) are major factors in two conditions which have enormous political implications: dependence on foreign oil sources and destruction of the environment.

And for a non-veg viewpoint of the importance of environmental issues check out a recent interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at Grist Magazine online:
http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/kennedy071304.asp

Wherein we find:

Grist: So if you were to tell our readers the single most important environmental action they should take, what would it be?

Kennedy: If your choice is to buy a Prius or go work for a politician who is going to implement the CAFE standards, you better work for the politician. The most important thing you can do is participate in the political process. Support the environmental groups that wage legal action and lobby for these bills. Get rid of the politicians who are whoring for industry. It's more important than recycling. It's more important than anything you can do.


And for the BIGGEST environmental impact of your individual lifestyle choices:

Eat your veggies, early and often!

[DenverDem]

1. Vegetarianism is better

for health, environmental, and ethical reasons.

Been one since '75 and I'm absurdly healthy in spite of periods of over partying.

[Malva Zebrina]

10. and I got sick on vegetarianism

and also had a gall bladder condition as a result.

Did it for three years--and was unhealthy.,

[DenverDem]

13. You did it wrong.

Vegetarianism is not unhealthy.

[cspiguy]

2. or follow a healthy Atkins (tm) weight loss program

and eat lots and lots of these great vegetables. Oh yeah, you can't eat much grain or other forms of sugar which balloons our species but you will also enjoy a sensible amount of protein - which means muscle, energy, and healthy cells. Too bad people seem to think the new weight loss approach means only high fat meat and no veggies.

[govegan]

4. Health is to be encouraged

However, an Atkins plan invariably includes a heavy dependence on animal protein. Thus the environmental and energy cost in needlessly high.

Despite it's fallacies, the Atkins plan does promote some sensible dietary choices.

Scientifically, beyond any reasonable doubt, the human species has absolutely no physical requirement for animal proteins (except for the milk of human kindness and a mother's love).

Be healthy, be well.

Eat your veggies, early and often!

[ThatPoetGuy]

5. There's no such thing as a healthy Atkins diet

First of all, veggies have a higher sugar content than grains.

Secondly, people who follow the Atkins diet tend to be sedentary to begin with; it's why they need to lose weight. When they cut carbohydrates down to 40% of their caloric intake, they guarantee they will remain sedentary. They will not have the energy to run and exercise and climb mountains and lead a full and healthy and rewarding life.

On the 4th of July, I spent six hours running around and playing hard with dogs and friends and children, with no food, with nonstop energy. Six hours. I was able to do this because I have a good, healthy intake of complex carbohydrates. I would be surprised to learn of an Atkins dieter who can keep up with me for three hours, let alone six.

[info being]

6. I'm low-carb and I work out often

Protein helps build muscle and makes you stronger...so that you can do more. If you depend upon a sugar rush to work out, you negate many of the positive effects of doing so...namely losing weight.

[DS1]

15. whatever

[Kathy in Cambridge]

21. Wow good for you

:eyes:

:boring:

[Terran]

26. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.

First of all, veggies have a higher sugar content than grains.

A ludicrous statement. Sugar in spinach? Broccoli?

Secondly, people who follow the Atkins diet tend to be sedentary to begin with; it's why they need to lose weight.

That's not fact, that's stereotyping.

[Triana]

3. Veggie here...

...for health, political, moral, and environmental reasons.

[Generator]

7. More propaganda for turnips

Having a shitty day. This just PROVES I'm on the wrong frigging planet. Get me off. Waiting for that study that shows that ice cream eaters live ten years longer than those skinny boring people that like to eat vegetables. But NO! Some day the truth will come. We are controlled by evil lizards. Man, it's a joke for them, but it's killing me.

[mom cat]

8. Don't turnip your nose at vegies!

Sorry, I can't pass up a straight line. :hi:

[Ms. Clio]

9. Yay! I love broccoli (unlike Dimson's dumbass dad)

Yum--just had some last night, sauteed in peanut oil with lots of minced garlic and soy sauce.

By the time I hit my 60s, my brain will be super sharp!

[Malva Zebrina]

11. It is about time that people realize that we are being jerked around by

the agri businesses when it comes to our diets.

I have watched it come and go. I have seen people who were total meat eaters live to be ninety y ears old. Records of the original settlers show that once they survived childhood diseases, such as diptheria, and survived childhood, many of them lived to old age--at least until the seventies and they ate meat--they ate meat.

Meat was in , now it is out---because the sugar industry was suffering under the low carb phase.

We are being manipulated by the corporations as far as what we eat.

[DenverDem]

14. And meat producers are not agribusiness?

If you can't see the health benefits, then the environmental benefits and agricultural efficiency benefits are irrefutable.

[prolesunited]

17. If you think the meat they ate

was anything-like the hormone-laden, antibiotic-filled, factory-farmed meat that today's consumers are eating, you're sadly mistaken.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but I am curious as to what you were eating. Did you research it? Get any help from a nutritionist or dietician? What were you using as protein sources?

Even though I don't eat meat or seafood, I do consume eggs and dairy several times a week and take a multivitamin for added insurance. It's only been a couple of years now, but I haven't felt this well or fit since my early 20s.

[Malva Zebrina]

18. Yes, believe me I did extensive research

I read and read-I am a diabetic controlled by diet, and believe me, I reasearched and was quite familiar moreso than than manyh people are-I believe that vegetarianism is not for everyone.

Sorry--I was not healthy and I gave it a good try.

One does not have to eat the meat that they feel is tainited by hormones or etc.there are farms that do raise beef without it . But we all know people, my father in law for one, who lived to be ninety five, on a meat diet. My grandmother, lived to be 103, on a meat diet, the usual American diet.



It is a useless discussion. There is no proof that vegetarianism is more healthy than a meat eating, or fish eating diet. What does harm is an overindulgence in sugars and carbohydrates. Overeating, in other words. My grandmother was not an overeater, and my FIL , a sturdy Swabbisher from the Black Forest, regulated his appetite. (and imbibed in a shot of gin every night)

The sugar industry is a powerful lobby. There is sugar in everything, practically, that is commercially processed.

Avoid overeating, large portions,stuffing yourself, eating in between meals and snacking and too many carbs in the form of bread, white bread especially, pasta more than a normal portion, such as 1/2 cup, and white rice and other hi glycemic foods and there will be fewer problems, imo.

But I do not think that a vegetarian diet is healthier than a meat eating diet. If it is for you, fine. It is not for everyone.

I have my own experience to offer and the experience of others who have been on a lo carb diet for years who also have excellent lipid profiles and stay within the normal weight parameters.

[Malva Zebrina]

19. don't you ask yourself why you are taking a multi-vitamin for "insurance"?

[prolesunited]

22. Umm...

Because I work two jobs and don't have time to cook for myself as much as I would like and know I'm missing things.

Hey, whatever works for you. I'm not militant about it or anything.

The reason I asked, and felt it was a valid question, is that some people just give up meat and stuff themselves with a bunch of over-processed carbs because they weren't well informed. No harm or insult meant by the question.

[Solly Mack]

12. Great! I'm covered!

I love me some greens!

[LoZoccolo]

16. Vegetarians taste better.

I thought that this was some sort of joke on the part of carnivores threatening to cannibalize vegetarians until one of my friends told me about this vegetarian he dated.

[IndianaGreen]

20. This is not true at all!

Bush has a head of cabbage for a brain and he is an intellectual zero!

[JDPriestly]

23. Vegetables are good for you

I took an informal inventory of the people in my family who lived long and those that didn't, and I decided to eat lots of vegetables and fruit. I am by no means a vegetarian. I eat low-carb, but by that I mean as little sugar as possible without giving up fruits and vegetables and eating lower fat meats. That is how the healthy people in my family have enjoyed long lives for a couple of generations as far as I can tell.

[JPace]

24. A Case For Meat Eaters

"One of the most nutty, stereotype fallacies...is the vegetarian claim that crop husbandry is less chemically and energy intensive than live stock farming. Whilst this is true in consideration of the intensive grain-fed livestock units, the traditional mixed farming unit raises livestock for meat and milk off extensively managed, low-input grassland systems; and each acre of well managed grassland can produce four harvests a season of high-protein forage utilizing its all inclusive clover plants as a green manure for fixing free atmospheric nitrogen into the soil. whereas, an arable cropping system will only yield one or two crops per season and will largely remain reliant on the inputs of artificial fertilizer for its nitrogen source; one ton of which requires ten tons of crude oil in the manufacturing process...Well-managed grassland is rarely sprayed with pesticide/fungicide/herbicide, not even on the most chemically orientated of farms. Yet virtually all vegetable and arable systems receive an average of ten chemical sprayings annually through from the initial seed stage to the final storage of the produce. Vegetables are so heavily sprayed that the more perceptive elements of the medical establishment have actually linked the victims of a mystery, novel neurological syndrome to the fact that they are all vegetarians in common. One team led by Dr. David Ratner from the Central Emek Hospital, Afula, in Israel, blood tested several isolated cases of those suffering from this syndrome and found that various organophosphate pesticide residues intensively present in their vegetarian diet were responsible. Once the victims were convinced that they should return to a diet including meat and milk products, their symptoms and abnormal blood enzyme levels normalized rapidly." Mark Purdey "The Nutcracker Suite". Quoted on -age 334 of "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. http://www.westonaprice.org/

[govegan]

25. Ludicrous -- how about a case for meatheads

"Yet virtually all vegetable and arable systems receive an average of ten chemical sprayings annually through from the initial seed stage to the final storage of the produce."

Anyone who publishes such total nonsense has no credibility.

"One team led by Dr. David Ratner from the Central Emek Hospital, Afula, in Israel, blood tested several isolated cases of those suffering from this syndrome and found that various organophosphate pesticide residues intensively present in their vegetarian diet were responsible."

Dare you repeat such nonsense as a "case for meat?"

Of course, any nation, state or region that practices intensive animal agriculture is likely beholden to the agribusiness interests that push pesticides and herbicides like crack cocaine for farmers. Once hooked, they can't do without it.

It takes a total suspension of rational logic to believe that grassland grazing is somehow an efficient use of the earth's resources. Although possibly a "better" use than intensive factory farming, it is hardly an efficient use of available resources. Even with the most intesive factory farmed systems, the earth is not capable of feeding the human population. How in the world would grassland grazing feed more?

************

"Water required to produce one pound of U.S. beef, according to the national Cattlemens' Beef Association: 441 gallons" ("Myths and Facts About Beef Production: Water Use," National Cattlemen's Beef Association) <02.10.01.02>

"Water required to produce one pound of U.S.beef: 2,500 gallons" (per Dr. George Borgstrom, Chairman of Food Science and Human Nutrition Dept of College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Michigan State University, "Impacts on Demand for and Quality of land and Water," Presentation to the 1981 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) <02.10.01.03>

"Water required to produce 1 pound of California beef: 2,464 gallons" ("Water Inputs in California Food Production," Water Education Foundation, Sacramento, CA ) <02.10.01.04>

"Water required to produce one pound (lb.) of California foods:

* 1 lb. lettuce: 23 gallons
* 1 lb. tomatoes: 24 gallons
* 1 lb. wheat: 25 gallons
* 1 lb. carrots: 33 gallons
* 1 lb. apples: 49 gallons
* 1 lb. chicken: 815 gallons
* 1 lb. pork: 1,630 gallons
* 1 lb. beef: 5,214 gallons

(according to Soil and Water specialists, Univ. of Calif. Agricultural Extension, working with livestock farm advisors: Schulbach, Herb , et. al., in Soil and Water, No. 38, Fall 1978) <02.10.01.05>

"In California, the single biggest consumer of water is not Los Angeles. It is not the oil and chemicals or defense industries. Nor is it the fields of grapes and tomatoes. It is irrigated pasture: grass grown in a near-desert climate for cows... The West's water crisis --- and many of its environmental problems as well --- can be summed up, implausible as this may seem, in a single word: livestock." ("Cadillac Desert", by Marc Reisner) <02.10.01.06>

"Nearly half the water consumed in this country is used for livestock, mostly cattle." (Audubon Magazine, Dec. 1999) <02.10.01.07>

"Irrigation to grow food for livestock, including hay, corn, sorghum, and pasture, uses 50 out of every 100 gallons of water consumed in the United States." (Frances Moore Lappe, Diet for a Small Planet, 20th Anniversary Edition, Ballantine Books, New York, 1991, pg. 76) <02.10.01.08>

[Kolesar]

27. It sounds like the solution would be to eat non-pesticide-treated veggies

Not to return to eating meat. I was under the impression that most American meat eaters also eat a significant quantity of vegetables, so they ought to have the same problem of consuming pesticides.