I think we (low carb in general) are winning
I think we (low carb in general) are winning
It helps that we're right. That it can't be bad to eat what humans have eaten for 2 million years.
But 2 recent things I've looked at were studies done a few decades ago and shelved because they didn't get the "right" answer, but were recovered recently and published showing the lipid hypothesis was wrong and the cause of metabolic disorder was carbohydrates
They were suppressed in the 70s and 80s, now they are published. Dietary guidelines in Australia (one of the biggest wheat exporters) now allow low carb for treating type 2 diabetes.
I do believe we're watching a change in consensus (which as always is progressing one death at a time - perhaps it's good that the other side is committed to a metabolically dangerous path)
I agree with everything you say. The fact that it works, and people can measure many of their own metrics to show it works is huge. Everyone should be a scientist for their own body.
We are probably wrong about some things, but with the let's verify spirit we will figure it out!
perhaps it's good that the other side is committed to a metabolically dangerous path)
This makes me sad. I do my best when I see someone with a problem, I try to make sure they are aware of options.
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I discovered all of this, when I was diagnosed with essential hypertension. My medical provider at the time just said eat less and exercise more. I had to do my own research to find a way to reverse it. And ever since then I've been very invested
It helps that we're right. That it can't be bad to eat what humans have eaten for 2 million years.
The flaw in your logic is that nature's only purpose is reproduction. As long as you make it at least that far, nothing else matters. Reproduction starts relatively early in our lifetime.
Though of course pro meat people are still being deleted from wikipeida
And the lies about beef being bad for the environment have traction
And of course the opposition is an organised religious group, and we're not.
Beef seems to need much more land and water usage than almost any other food. Since you need land to grow the food for the cattle and land for the cattle. Take the extra methane output which is a potent greenhouse gas. By almost any metric that will be worse for the environment than just growing a food source directly.
Perhaps a chocolate or something takes more water per kg. But many less kg’s will be consumed of chocolate than meat.
https://redtablemeats.com/fresh-meat/beef/how-much-water-is-needed-to-produce-1kg-of-beef/
(I eat beef and other meats periodically).
Ruminants, which include beef cows, are part of the normal carbon, and water cycles. The water ruminants drink is mostly peed out onto the land. Ruminants when eating their natural pastoral diet do NOT want grains, and do not need grain grown inputs.
- Arable land is about 11% of total land
- Pastoral land is about 30% which is not suitable for growing crops (topsoil!)
Regardless of where you sit on the Arable / Pastoral debate, one unifying thing that is critically important is top soil health and depletion. Ruminants are a critical part of maintaining and growing top soil! Most industrial grain production is monocroping using exogenous fertilizers. Sustainable agriculture requires we incorporate ruminants to replenish topsoil (crop rotation, etc). Those exogenous fertilizers will run out eventually (some reports say we have between 30-60 "traditional" crop cycles left in the current system).
In the industrial system grain waste is used to feed ruminants, but that isn't super healthy for the ruminants
Permaculture cows in their fields are a negative carbon dioxide equivalent source.
Cows turn incomplete and hard to absorb proteins in wheat into 1. More protein, and 2. Complete and highly absorbable protein. It is more efficient to get your vital amino acids by feeding your crops to cows and then eating the cows
Beef is mostly grown on land that isn't fit for growing crops
Beef returns practically all the water it consumes to the water cycle
How much land is dedicated to feeding pet dogs and cats?
Did you know America has more horses than dairy cows? Horses have the same digestive system as cows, they release as much methane
There are promising projects to make cows digest methane rather than expel it
There are multiple battles here
- Low Carb is a safe health tool
- Meat isn't dangerous
- cholesterol is not a disease
- Seed oils have a huge impact on health, insulin resistance
- PBF have a inflammatory cost on the body
I think the best thing we can do is demonstrate what works for us, and be friendly resources to others if they have questions.
The Anti-Meat movement is a fascinating world to research, it's not just economic interests, we have some faith thrown in there too
As far as I can tell low carb is fully accepted in psychiatric treatment, fairly accepted in diabetics, proven in weight loss but not widely prescribed, and nearly never used by for profit weight loss organisations because it's so easy to DIY without any special products
Researchers have also noticed that they can get a thousand zero carb eaters from Reddit with high adherence to animal sourced food only, and likewise vegans and vegetarians since we separate ourselves so well, so some good epidemiological research is possible where you can actually compare some hundreds of people who eat only meat to others who eat only plants
It would probably be fairly straightforward to compare the spectrum from vegan through vegetarian, pescatarian, SAD, keto, ketovore, carnivore and all the shades of grey I missed though we're probably unique in our ability to say exactly what we ate every day for years
There's also so much money in the chain between a farm full of wheat to a box of highly processed "food", compared to the simple path of meat varying from cheapest self harvested, self butchered, self stored through to using a professional butcher who buys from a meat packing plant through to the most expensive - supermarket meat
Money plus religion versus reality