Philosophical Vegan Forum

Thank you so much @brimstoneSalad for taking your time to explain everything so eloquently. Learned so much from this thread. Kudos!

@brimstoneSalad thank you again for your answer.
On my vitamin D deficiency: I never implied I wouldn’t correct it. As I said originally, I was making sure to get some from sun exposure because I was going through some symptoms that seemed to be exacerbated by taking the two different dosages of D3 supplements that I tried. As I mentioned, my doctor knew about the symptoms occurring immediately after taking the supplements. The fact that I mentioned a cold sore doesn’t automatically imply that there is some unknown viral infection which I am dramatically underestimating and that I need to be prompted to go immediately see a doctor... Why do you assume that you can judge better than me when it’s time for me to see a doctor? I feel like you are projecting on me preconceptions that you have towards a certain x category of people, as if you decided that I am anti-medicine or the like. Yes, the cold sore is a viral infection, by definition, but I did not mean at all to imply that it was something that’s never happened to me before. On the contrary, it occurs occasionally and I know how to manage it. I was just noting that I’ve had a series of symptoms on my lips that have been replacing each other closely over a long period of time, as one strange thing that has been happening to me in the last few months, in addition to the fatigue issue.
I find it a a bit worrisome that you feel free to repeatedly insist that I see a doctor; it really display this “I know better than you about your own health” approach that has no reason to be, and puts you in a biased position. The same goes for when you say:

B. Stop assuming you know everything about diet planning and accept help from people who have decades of practical experience and not just some basic theoretical knowledge.

As much as I think it would be great fun getting feedback on my eating habits, I don’t need help inputting foods into cronometer until I reach 100% of all nutrients within an acceptable caloric range. I have “decades of experience” planning my meals, too, and a much deeper knowledge of my needs and possibilities around food. Again, you’re assuming that you know more than me about myself because you have a preformed idea of the category of people I belong to. I don’t have a problem with researching what plant sources are available to boost the nutrients whose targets I struggle to hit. The reason I concluded that a vegan diet is pretty hard to do without supplements is that I’ve maxed out my psychological limits around food choices, at least for now; and this should be the focus of your attention if you want to help, I think, rather than the assumption that I’m doing something wrong or that you know better about what works for me.

I underlined this point not so much for the sake of it, but because I think what lies behind it is the same thing that prevents you from understanding my point in the general discussion. We could keep discussing forever about each single sentence that everyone writes, but the fundamental problem which remains unaddressed is under what theoretical framework to understand nutrition. While I subscribe to Campbell’s idea that nutrition should be understood wholistically, you stick to a reductionist approach. While randomised control studies are useful to understand parts of how nutrition works, we cannot assume that they give us the whole picture through some of the linear correlation or causality links that they establish. Nutrition should be viewed as a whole rather than as a collection of parts, it cannot be fully understood solely in terms of its component parts. In this sense I find the cases of systematic fortification of foods you mentioned interesting, they seems to suggest that supplements in small and non-systematic doses are probably processed by our body just as well as animal products in the same quantities. That’s essentially the reason why I said I would keep incorporating some fortified products into my diet; but not enough for me to feel sure that taking a daily multivitamin would be wise.

But the point is you can't say something is sacrificing your health unless there's evidence that the alternative is better, and there isn't. To the contrary, there's good reason to believe that supplements are better than animal products.

The production of supplements involves what presumably is a very long chain which is currently very poorly regulated, as it is to be assumed, e.g., by the fact that some brands of supplements are more trustworthy than others, or that randomly tested supplements have been regularly found to contain less nutrients than they promised on the label (so much for all the other potentially problematic characteristics of that supplement, then).

The so-called blue zones of the world are a very convincing evidence that, while overconsumption of animal products (a practice we’ve adopted for the last half century only) is very harmful, a limited intake of animal products (perhaps closer to the rate at which we might be able to get animal products if we weren’t living in a highly industrialised society), along with plenty of plants, produces populations with the highest longevity on the planet. This is probably not so much because animal products are “good”, but because our body can tolerate them and at the same time get from them those nutrients which evidently would be difficult to get from plants only. Maybe in a few decades we will be able to verify whether, indeed, vegans who fill those gaps by taking synthetic nutrients can live even longer than people from the blue-zones, but I don’t think we are in a position to know right now.

I think supplements and animal products are both problematic for the human body. I just think that because we’ve survived for millennia eating small amounts of animal products, they are marginally safer than something artificial and made in poorly regulated industries for only a few decades: with synthetic produce many things can go wrong, not only on the manufacturing side of things but also wrt how our body is capable to deal with isolated supplements. This is in no way to deny that with animal products we are also getting the antibiotics, the plastic, the heavy metals, etc., and that’s no less of a problem. It’s a tragic scenario, that’s my whole point here. We can take a lot of NSAIDs before they start becoming a problem – and if I go to my GP here in the UK lamenting any sort of pain, I can guarantee that instead of searching for the root cause of such pain he will prescribe me to take a painkiller, even for long-term pain –; the body deals with them, no biggie, they take care of the problem. But that’s not a good reason to keep taking them as if they were water.

If you were set on it, you would want to eat oysters instead, since they are richer sources of the nutrients you're concerned with.

Yes, when I said ‘seafood’ I meant bivalves, my bad. I included fatty fish because of vitamin D, please correct me if I’m wrong.

I'm not sure how you don't see the inconsistency here.
You think that even small amounts of supplements are bad because an overdose is harmful.
But a small amount of animal products aren't bad just because too much is harmful?

To recap: I don’t think supplements are bad because an overdose is harmful, but because they are synthetic replacement for real food, which works in our body in a way which is very different from isolated nutrients, or nutrients combined in artificial proportions. On top of that, many studies raise red flags towards supplements, and not only when they are looking at high doses, as the above mentioned 15-sec-research one on multivitamins, which does not recommend them. The idea that such study does not recommend multivitamins only to “ignorant/stupid people” is misleading: there is no way for you to know exactly what is going on in your body nutrient-wise, no matter how learned you are on the matter.
Small amounts of animal products aren’t bad because the blue zones testify for their safety, and because, as far as I am aware, the general scientific evidence trend essentially suggests that consuming predominantly plants is key, rather than animal/processed foods being the problem, because plants essentially repair the damages caused by animal products (e.g. on the cardio-vascular system), thus making them very sustainable in limited quantities. That being said, I agree that animal products do cause damage and it would be best to avoid them completely (and just a reminder that we are leaving ethics aside here), but the problem is what’s the best tradeoff for those nutritional gaps that are most likely left by eating only plants.

If you have a phobia of supplements

I do not have a phobia, I just think a wholistic approach makes more sense than a reductionist one.

What I'm getting from this is "ignorance, therefore whatever I believe must be right". In cases where we can't conclude something with certainty we don't get to just assume to answer to be whatever we prefer to believe.

and

If we don't know which is better, you can't just assume based on personal dogma

No, what you should get is “ignorance, therefore perhaps best not to take the risk”. As I said numerous times, I do not assume whatever I prefer to believe, on the contrary: by taking supplements you are the one(s) to assume that there is no harm while in reality there is no conclusive proof; by not taking them you simply accept that 1) we don’t know and 2) taking supplements is basically a gamble. What is dogmatic is to assume that supplements are completely safe, not taking them is simply suspending judgement and not taking a risk.

It's every bit as likely that an artificial apple made from a number up supplements is healthier than a "natural" apple.

That’s possible, provided that we start having serious controls on the production process of the supplements that make it to our drugstores shelves. But even then we would have to wait a number of decades after people start habitually consuming them (or decades long studies), and right now the artificial apple is not an option.

It's not his age that makes him a quack, he's a fear monger and he advances speculation in favor of evidence.

What fear monger and speculation? Again, having a problem with the use of supplements does not automatically make you a quack, in absence of conclusive or even just convincing evidence that supplements are safe under a wholeistic point of view. Campbell explains much better than I can do in his books what he means by taking a wholistic approach to nutrition, and why science is fundamentally not addressing the problems with nutrition, if you ever have the time or curiosity to look into it before dismissing him as a quack because he (as many others) says something you disagree with...

Again, there's absolutely no reason to believe long term consumption of modest supplements is harmful at all. We've been doing it for a very long time on population-size scales.
Harm from supplements vs. animal products are quite different. Again, one has ONLY to do with having too much of something and is not innate to the substance, the other seems to carry some innately harmful substances. Having animal products less often, like smoking only occasionally, will surely lessen the harm, but there's no reason to believe that's better than just getting those nutrients from supplements.

I disagree on the fact that supplements have “only to do with having too much of something”, obviously. For the reasons explained above. Which are also why I think that both supplements and animal products are innately harmful substances, and they are both sustainable in small quantities.

It WOULD require a world-wide conspiracy of governments intentionally hiding evidence and poisoning their populations with harmful supplements for some nefarious reason. It DOES require rejecting several of the most massive epidemiological studies ever done, and it requires rejecting ALL of the mechanistic evidence.

Governments recommend we eat animal products. That’s not because they are not bad for us, as you say, but because they provide nutrients which are otherwise difficult to get in the right quantities. The same goes for supplements: they are useful, they work against deficiencies, they help to manage certain types of diet. They both have pros, so it’s only reasonable that they would be recommended, we do not need to imagine a conspiracy theory, even though supplements as much as animal products have huge industries as their backbones. In both cases we are overlooking that overconsumption is dangerous (on top of other different danger factors that come with both, see above) because the benefits are evident if compared with the serious dangers of recommending against them to people who don't know enough about nutrition and might run into deficiencies or worse.
What massive epidemiological studies are you referring to? Again, you do not need to "reject all the mechanistic evidence", you just need to realise that the reductionist framework within which that research about nutrition has been carried out is flawed, and recognise that a wholistic approach has more merits than drawbacks when it comes to understanding nutrition. It would hardly be the first time science needs to revisit its perspective, and historically this is what constitutes scientific progress.

So if there's a child drowning in a pool and you only need to throw a life preserver, but in order to get the life preserver you have to walk out into the sun thus increasing your chance of getting skin cancer by 0.000001%, you should surely let the child drown because nobody would choose ethics over health?

How can you say that the risk by taking supplements is 0.000001%? I understand that’s how you perceive it, but again if you switch to a wholistic framework for a moment, it is not so.

You might be surprised to learn that a significant number and probably majority of the world's population believe homosexuality to be socially harmful, and some even believe it results in natural disasters. Interestingly, those beliefs have about the same amount of evidence behind them as your opposition to modest supplementation. So, it's a very good comparison.

I see you point that nobody in his right mind would believe that homosexuality is socially harmful just as much as that supplements are dangerous. But I personally can’t see any non ridiculous reason why homosexuality should be considered socially harmful, while I am really not laughing about any of the issues that might come with supplements if we stop considering nutrition mechanically and we start looking at it as a complex natural system.

Anyway, thank you for some interesting leads for future research, for me. I think I now understand better why others might be comfortable taking supplements, which was among the original goals of this thread. Even though I still have to disagree on the core points you are making, as I explained, I find some of the evidences you mentioned reassuring. I probably will not be taking a multivitamin any time soon, and will indeed try to keep up the cronometer work until I am confident with some meals combinations that would meet my goals. And will keep learning about this stuff Thanks for your insights!

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 9:35 am How can you say that the risk by taking supplements is 0.000001%? I understand that’s how you perceive it, but again if you switch to a wholistic framework for a moment, it is not so.

I don't have time to answer everything right now, but I'll answer this because it underscores the issue with risk assessment here.

The "risk" of taking supplements is not only small, but a "negative risk" because the chance of benefit is higher than the chance of harm.
And no, that doesn't depend on your framework: a reduction in mortality for modest supplements like multivitamins is based on epidemiological (real world) data. This is not hypothetical, and it's framework neutral.

When we talk about gambling, we have to talk about the odds.
Assuming you can afford to bet, If I ask you to put up $1 for a 50% chance of winning $5, then you take that bet! No rational agent can decline a wager like that.

Are you familiar with the psychology of risk assessment? Like how people tend to be more afraid of flying despite it being safer than driving?
There's also a mechanism there that apparently magnifies risk perception for ironic risks too. For example: people are disproportionately afraid of being killed by an air bag because of the irony that it's meant to be protective in a crash (and they work, statistically speaking it's more likely to save your life than harm you).
@Jebus Do you remember what that's called, am I explaining that correctly?

Anyway, I suspect it's the air bag fear phenomena that's going on here. People take vitamins to reduce their risks (and by all existing data, they do reduce risk a little) but because of this they're inordinately afraid of being harmed by vitamins.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 9:35 amI see you point that nobody in his right mind would believe that homosexuality is socially harmful just as much as that supplements are dangerous.

To the contrary, there's less evidence that homosexuality is not harmful than that multivitamins aren't harmful (there is evidence, just not as much).
There are also plausible mechanisms, like breaking up families (which is rare but happens), and known increased risk of some STD transmission among gay men. Possibly lower reproductive rate which is a problem for countries with rates below replacement.

If you're going to reject vitamins on the basis of insufficient evidence, then that arguably commits you to rejecting a LOT of other things with less evidence of safety than vitamins or at least respecting other people's rejection of those things.
The Earhquakes thing is silly, of course, but that's a fringe belief even among conservatives.
From what I can tell, if you do criticize conservatives for being homophobic you'd be a bit of a hypocrite.

Now I CAN be critical of conservatives because I'm not as prone to rule thing harmful for lack of some arbitrarily high standard of evidence. I'm fairly easily satisfied that something is benign, and for most vitamins we have good evidence of that. The evidence for homosexuality being socially benign isn't quite as thorough, but it being pride month and not knowing who might get the wrong idea from this, I feel compelled to clarify that while limited the evidence should be sufficient for any sensible person (plenty of data on kids raised by same sex couples turning out fine etc.).

The point is that this isn't just about irrational standards for personal risk assessment. When we reject new things for bad reasons we're validating the same kind of reasoning of every bigoted conservative in the process.

I don't mean to shame you too hard here and I appreciate your engagement with this issue, it's just important to emphasize the danger of the kind of thinking that puts speculative frameworks over evidence -- whether that framework is biblical of Campbellical.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:44 pm @Jebus Do you remember what that's called, am I explaining that correctly?

You explained it perfectly. It's simply called a "value bet".

My brother @DrDavid and I refer to it as a 1-odds.

Supplements work to correct deficiencies and it’s better to take a supplement than to keep being deficient in something, thus they are useful in that sense, this is not contentious. I hardly think that the scientific consensus is that supplements otherwise lower mortality rates, judging from the review you mentioned before.

There is a difference between risk and hazard (I guess that’s the word you would use to classify it in English, sorry – not my first language): taking an airplane is less “risky” than driving a car, because planes crash much less often than cars; but taking a plane is more “hazardous” than driving a car because in a plane crash you are pretty sure to die, whereas if you have a car accident you are much more likely to survive. That’s why people are more scared of flying than driving.
A component of what you describe as “irony of risk” is definitely part of it: I do not want to live under the illusion that I’m making a better choice for my health, while I am in reality doing myself harm. If the alternative is between running into nutritional deficiencies and taking supplements, of course the latter is the better choice. But since a third way in our case is given, supplements are not worth the risk no matter what such risk is, because if isolated nutrients happen to bear “side effects” on the basis of how our body process them and/or of their potential poor quality, we are in no position to quantify the risk. (edit: I guess the risk would be quantifiable statistically speaking, I'm just saying it would have to be based on factoring in a big unknown).

As regarding homosexuality: I am not sure whether it’s actually true that more families are broken up because of concealed homosexuality of one of the partners than it would happen anyway, independently from their sexual orientation; but let’s assume that’s the case, then normalising homosexuality would actually be the solution to the problem, given that homosexuality is not a choice and if people felt like they don’t need to lie they wouldn’t marry someone under false pretences. Wrt STD, at least as regards HIV it is a stereotype that it’s “a gay problem”, and in reality, because there are still more heterosexual than homosexual relations, the greater risk factor overall lies within the heterosexual population (historically the LGBT community has been very vocal in the fight against HIV, due to the fact that it did become known through the media as the “gay disease”; as a result, it’s perceived as a mainly gay problem, but it isn’t). This would only become a problem if we assumed that rates of homosexuality in a gay friendly society would grow exponentially for some reason, thus assuming that being gay is nurture not nature, too. As for low reproduction rates in some countries, considering that a problem would have to entail a series of complicated consequences, such as being (pointlessly, I think, despite the recent wave of right wing extremism around the world) against the idea of a global world where people can move freely; you would have to think that the culture of such countries would die along with the low birth rate, but that would mean both fighting against the windmills of a world that evolves globally and is continuously changing, and also it would need, as above, the assumption that rates of homosexuality will grow if homosexuality will cease being stigmatised, since I imagine that currently gay people make barely a dent in a country’s reproduction rates; and so on.

The comparison between homosexuality and supplements is impossible because, while we have the ability to discuss the various negative implications (or lack thereof) of homosexuality in society, we have no idea of the complexity of nutrition. Our knowledge of it literally keeps growing, and it’s unlikely that we will ever understand or be able to represent all of it. The only way you could make this comparison is by assuming that homosexuality somehow has very subtle psychological implications on members of society that are undesirable and that cannot be grasped or represented. But because there is a strict correspondence between thought and language, I would be inclined to dismiss that as irrelevant. The mechanisms of nutrition, on the other hand, are way more unknown to us than the mechanisms of our society, and we are in an infinitely weaker position when it comes to judging the former.

When we reject new things for bad reasons we're validating the same kind of reasoning of every bigoted conservative in the process.

Supplements are not just “something new”, and I’m not rejecting them because they bring forth some disruption to the status quo. My criticism has nothing to do with their newness, but only with our scientific paradigms for nutrition and the quality of these synthetic products. You might think that it’s a “bad reason” to think that nutrition is too complex, and too unknown to us right now, to mess with it; but others might disagree, and some do. Your generalisation here keeps seeming to me completely absurd, and it essentially stems from the idea that our scientific paradigm is perfect as it is, rather than possibly needing some improvement.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:33 pm Supplements work to correct deficiencies and it’s better to take a supplement than to keep being deficient in something, thus they are useful in that sense, this is not contentious.

Studies have also indicated that most people have sub-optimal levels of some nutrients.
Obviously if you have adequate status in everything, supplements aren't going to be useful. That's why high dose supplements aren't any good.

Is it healthier to get all of your nutrients from vegetables? Probably, but that's because vegetables have other things in them (phytonutrients) that benefit health.
There's no reason to think it's healthier to get those nutrients from animal products which lack those health boosting substances and instead tend to have contamination and health harming substances -- much worse contamination than supplements.

Even badly sourced supplements with higher amounts of heavy metals are going to contain less than fish, for example. But the nice thing about supplements is that you can choose more reputable companies, and you can even mix it up to hedge your bets in case one is a little lower in something than labeled.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:33 pmI hardly think that the scientific consensus is that supplements otherwise lower mortality rates, judging from the review you mentioned before.

The point is that multivitamins are correlated with lower mortality period. If you're looking at correlations (and what's what you're doing when citing things like blue zones) that's the only relevant data. Anything else is a matter of interpretation. But if your framework is claiming that something that is correlated with LOWER mortality (like taking supplements, or eating less animal products) is actually BAD then your framework is going against the trend of evidence and is less likely to be true than one that is in concordance with the epidemiological evidence.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:33 pmThere is a difference between risk and hazard

Another misunderstanding on your part. I don't know how you misunderstood this because I thought I was pretty clear, but maybe something lost in translation.

When we look at something like total risk of injury, ranging from stubbing your toe to dying, and we say X has higher total risk of total injury than Y, then there could be serious differences in the kinds of injuries sustained.

However, I'm talking specifically about risk of DYING. I'm not just talking about crashes (ranging from fender benders to fatal ones). There is no more severe injury than dying. Your risk of dying from a car crash per mile traveled is higher than dying from a plane crash in the same number of miles.


It's not only a small difference either.

So this is a complete misrepresentation:

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:33 pmtaking an airplane is less “risky” than driving a car, because planes crash much less often than cars; but taking a plane is more “hazardous” than driving a car because in a plane crash you are pretty sure to die, whereas if you have a car accident you are much more likely to survive.

You could not be more wrong. There are more crashes too, but we're not counting crashes: we're counting deaths. And that's what I'm talking about with supplements too. And FYI, most people survive plane crashes (95%, apparently https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45030345), it's not as dramatic as you suggest.

The data on mortality (which is the most absolute of outcomes) favors taking modest supplements over not taking them.
It's very plausible that getting enough nutrients from vegetables has an even better outcome, but we don't really have much data on that because very few people actually do that. Greger has cited a few cases which seem promising for Buddhist monks eating huge amounts of veggies and not taking many if any supplements, but there are also a lot of environmental and lifestyle variables.
There's nothing indicating that eating animal products and NOT taking supplements has a better outcome (that's something we DO have data on and would be apparent).

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:33 pmWrt STD, at least as regards HIV it is a stereotype that it’s “a gay problem”, and in reality, because there are still more heterosexual than homosexual relations, the greater risk factor overall lies within the heterosexual population

How are you wrong about everything here? Are you just saying these things without looking them up? Is it a language problem? This is getting a little frustrating.

Risk factor does not mean what you think it does. It is adjusted as per-capita, so it doesn't matter how large or small a population is.

https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview ... sk-for-hiv

Engaging in certain sexual relationships carries a higher risk factor for the individual. And in a social sense, it's risk factor we're looking at.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:33 pmThis would only become a problem if we assumed that rates of homosexuality in a gay friendly society would grow exponentially for some reason,

Out of the closet homosexuality does, and as sexual attraction is a spectrum there are a significant number of people (bisexual) who do have a choice. Even if they might prefer a man, they could also fall in love with and settle down with a woman, particularly true if there are societal pressures.

The bottom line is that you clearly have no idea what you're talking about and have spent zero effort actually engaging with the arguments against homosexuality. I have no interest in playing fundamentalist-advocate here.

It is unreasonable to oppose homosexuality. However, for every bit unreasonable that is on the basis of the evidence, it's even MORE unreasonable to oppose modest multivitamin supplementation. If you oppose the latter but criticize conservatives for opposing the former, you're being a raging hypocrite when it comes to your arbitrary standards of evidence for things you personally like vs. dislike.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:33 pmYou might think that it’s a “bad reason” to think that nutrition is too complex, and too unknown to us right now, to mess with it; but others might disagree, and some do.

Fundie christians think social order/families etc/ are too complex to mess with too.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:33 pmYour generalisation here keeps seeming to me completely absurd, and it essentially stems from the idea that our scientific paradigm is perfect as it is, rather than possibly needing some improvement.

Complete straw-man. At no time have I said or suggested our understanding is perfect.
However, overwhelmingly the evidence suggests that our understanding is adequate to make certain claims beyond any reasonable doubt, as experts in dietetics do.

Just like with topics such a climate change, there's some uncertainty in science, but the uncertainty is not so vast that the complete opposite is likely to be true. In any matter in health, unless you're following some dogma or faith, you have to understand that you're going with the most probably helpful advice based on professional recommendations and the preponderance of the evidence.

Another misunderstanding on your part. I don't know how you misunderstood this because I thought I was pretty clear, but maybe something lost in translation.
When we look at something like total risk of injury, ranging from stubbing your toe to dying, and we say X has higher total risk of total injury than Y, then there could be serious differences in the kinds of injuries sustained.
However, I'm talking specifically about risk of DYING. I'm not just talking about crashes (ranging from fender benders to fatal ones). There is no more severe injury than dying. Your risk of dying from a car crash per mile traveled is higher than dying from a plane crash in the same number of miles.

Of course there is more risk of dying by car crash: there are many more cars and people drive a car much more often than they take a plane, by far, and it's obvious how the miliage comparison is equally unfair. As regarding your 95% survival rate, the article you linked more precisely says:

Put simply, there is no clear-cut answer - just as we can't definitively say how survivable car accidents are, because it depends entirely on the circumstances. But when the US National Transportation Safety Board did a review of national aviation accidents from 1983-1999, it found that more than 95% of aircraft occupants survived accidents, including 55% in the most serious incidents.

The category "plane crash" surely includes the number of accidents that happen when the plane has not even left the airport, or after landing. Let's assume that survival to 'Serious incidents' is estimated at 55%, as the article says, that's really not very reassuring because it *does* come down to the conditions in which you might survive a "serious" plane crash, compared to a car crash. But in any case, since the point was an alleged comparison with supplements, even more so I don't see why you suggest to focus on the risk of dying only, since death is only one of the possible outcomes of the possible long-term effects of messing with nutrition.

How are you wrong about everything here? Are you just saying these things without looking them up? Is it a language problem? This is getting a little frustrating.
Risk factor does not mean what you think it does. It is adjusted as per-capita, so it doesn't matter how large or small a population is.
https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview ... sk-for-hiv
Engaging in certain sexual relationships carries a higher risk factor for the individual. And in a social sense, it's risk factor we're looking at.

The risk for STD comes from unprotected sex: nothing about this is specific to the gay population. Even if the gay population is more likely to engage in unprotected sex, the fact that they are a minority in the overall population *does not* make them the primary factor for STD. It only would in a scenario in which they become the majority.

Out of the closet homosexuality does, and as sexual attraction is a spectrum there are a significant number of people (bisexual) who do have a choice. Even if they might prefer a man, they could also fall in love with and settle down with a woman, particularly true if there are societal pressures.

I'm not sure how you don't see how backward-thinking and bigot this sounds. The fact that sexuality is a spectrum, or that indeed some people define themselves as bisexual, *does not* mean that *every gay person has a choice not to be gay*. It is simply ridiculous to suggest that repressing homosexuality would have a decrease of homosexuality as an outcome – maybe more repressed or concealed homosexuality, which in turns feeds the original "problem" you posited (the rate of broken marriages to which homosexuality apparently would contribute) rather than solving it.

The bottom line is that you clearly have no idea what you're talking about and have spent zero effort actually engaging with the arguments against homosexuality. I have no interest in playing fundamentalist-advocate here.

I've no idea where you get this from, since you have not successfully critiqued any of my arguments on the matter. If anything, you come across as someone who doesn't really have clear ideas on what homosexuality is... (nope, not a choice).

It is unreasonable to oppose homosexuality. However, for every bit unreasonable that is on the basis of the evidence, it's even MORE unreasonable to oppose modest multivitamin supplementation. If you oppose the latter but criticize conservatives for opposing the former, you're being a raging hypocrite when it comes to your arbitrary standards of evidence for things you personally like vs. dislike.

and even more ridiculously

Fundie christians think social order/families etc/ are too complex to mess with too.

Sorry, but I don't think you've demonstrated at all how criticising multivitamins entails criticising gay rights. As I said in my previous post, they are two totally different matters: on the one side we're dealing with something we know very little about, on the other we are dealing with something which happens under our very eyes (our society), that we created and are fully responsible for and as a consequence we have full power upon. The way in which the human body handles what we eat is vastly independent from our understanding of it. Religious fundamentalists can say all the absurdities they want, my point is exactly that while it's very easy to prove how they are absurdities, the same doesn't go for nutrition, because social studies are in no way a field comparable to nutrition. Your comparison is like saying that one can't criticise homophobic ideas if they also don't subscribe to the idea that black holes are dark matter, or that the universe is made of cosmic strings (all possible hypotheses, but we have *a lot* of research ahead of us on the topic before we can think we are mastering it; the same goes for nutrition).

Complete straw-man. At no time have I said or suggested our understanding is perfect.

When you refuse to consider that a wholistic framework shows the limits of our current research, or when you refuse to admit that we might just not know everything there is to know in the way that supplements work in the human body, you are suggesting that the current nutritional science tells us everything we need to know about it, and that we do not need to even consider alternative approaches suggested by another type of science, that encourages to use data in a less narrow way.

However, overwhelmingly the evidence suggests that our understanding is adequate to make certain claims beyond any reasonable doubt, as experts in dietetics do.

Yes, and that's why we have pharmacology and we do use and doctors do recommend drugs when they are needed. They work, they are a good idea when there is a problem to fix. As I said above, discouraging people from using supplements or animal products (depending on the audience, Ginny Messina and Jack Norris speak to vegans, thus they recommend supplements; governments speak to the general population, so they recommend to include animal products in the diet) would be dangerous, because a diet that doesn't include either of them is likely to cause deficiencies or worse problems.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2019 10:45 am I started trying to follow a fully vegan diet following the advice of Dr. Campbell almost a year ago, that goes more or less like 'if you eat a whole foods, plant-based diet you'll be able to get all the nutrients you need and prosper happily ever after'. A few months down the road, I realised that reality is not quite like that.

There are tons of diet book authors all making bombastic claims about their diets. I think reading the books can be interesting but you shouldn't take them too seriously, they are largely based on speculation.

A plant-based diet work for me either. At first I did a little self-experimentation and tried various supplements and that didn't help much and then I decided it was silly to experiment on myself (I only have one body...) and just started to selectively add back foods I eliminated to see which ones helped and which didn't. That resolved all the issues I was having but I can only speculate as to why.

In any case, everyone is unique and there is no one-size-fits all diet.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2019 10:45 am I am more concerned about my iron levels because, tracking my micronutrients on cronometer, I've noticed that I struggle to meet my iron RDA (among other things) – though not by far, and I do try to pair iron and vitamin C rich foods most of the time. Blood test serum ferritin was 40 microg/L, so within the normal range (but still on the low side? I'm not sure, though my doctor clearly wasn't concerned about that).

This seems a bit inconsistent with what you said earlier, if you're eating plenty of legumes, whole grains and vegetables you shouldn't be struggling to meet the RDA for iron unless your diet is calorie deficient. Of course whether you're absorbing sufficient amounts is another story, but meeting the RDA shouldn't be difficult.

Also if you're finding you're missing a lot nutritionally (except B-12) "on paper" then I'd suggest your diet is poorly planned. Fixing that doesn't require a lot of attention on a daily basis, just that you spend time to plan it correctly from the start. Following the guidelines created by plant-based (or vegan) nutritional professionals should have you pretty much automatically meeting your nutrient needs. But if you're eating out a lot that can present extra challenges because so much vegan food that is available is nutritionally poor, likewise for many of the substitute foods (fake cheese, etc).

I don't think getting vegan diets to work "on paper" is that difficulty if you're preparing most of your food yourself. But from my experience (with myself and others) everything can look fine "on paper" and you can still have issues. There are a number of genetic variants that impact how diet influences our health.

@carnap

A plant-based diet work for me either. At first I did a little self-experimentation and tried various supplements and that didn't help much and then I decided it was silly to experiment on myself (I only have one body...) and just started to selectively add back foods I eliminated to see which ones helped and which didn't. That resolved all the issues I was having but I can only speculate as to why.

Yeah, I've been thinking about experimenting with specific-nutrient-rich foods, but it sounds somewhat stressful. I'm starting to notice associations between certain foods and certain symptoms but things are not looking too good overall.

This seems a bit inconsistent with what you said earlier, if you're eating plenty of legumes, whole grains and vegetables you shouldn't be struggling to meet the RDA for iron unless your diet is calorie deficient. Of course whether you're absorbing sufficient amounts is another story, but meeting the RDA shouldn't be difficult.

Yeah, I'm trying to eat a slight caloric deficit. On top of that, also recovering from an ED, so trying to factor in foods which are still healthful but not necessarily optimal (often including nuts, so calorie dense), because it's ideal for my mental health. I am not too convinced about the problem with iron anymore, because I realised that my minimum goal was probably too high (18mg, while 15/16 might be more appropriate for me). That being said, I'm still having symptoms (mouth-corner-crack) that seem to be switchable on and off depending on quinoa+lentils-heavy interventions I self-administer... *sigh*. My new obsession is zinc

Also if you're finding you're missing a lot nutritionally (except B-12) "on paper" then I'd suggest your diet is poorly planned

Aside from what I've just said here above, I found that if I eat tofu 2-3 times a week that takes care of many problems, apart from vitamin E, which on most days I struggle to get in good enough quantities even eating nuts (though I do not eat oil).
Eating Dr Greger's daily dozen plus tofu seems to be a good solution for me, to meet pretty much all targets. With a bit more organisation, that might be achievable more regularly in the future (even though it's a bit too fruit heavy and low in vegetables for what I'd like). That is, if I don't give up sooner because of the fatigue etc. :/

But if you're eating out a lot that can present extra challenges because so much vegan food that is available is nutritionally poor, likewise for many of the substitute foods (fake cheese, etc).

True. I don't eat out very often at the moment, but I certainly wonder what role that would play long-term (if I just about reach RDAs on a normal day, even one day per week of failing to reach them might become a problem).

I don't think getting vegan diets to work "on paper" is that difficulty if you're preparing most of your food yourself. But from my experience (with myself and others) everything can look fine "on paper" and you can still have issues. There are a number of genetic variants that impact how diet influences our health.

Yeah, the worst thing is that I was perfectly healthy before trying this and I feel like a fool. *sigh*.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2019 9:41 am (18mg, while 15/16 might be more appropriate for me). That being said, I'm still having symptoms (mouth-corner-crack) that seem to be switchable on and off depending on quinoa+lentils-heavy interventions I self-administer... *sigh*. My new obsession is zinc

I've never gotten that corner-cracking issue before but I did start to get large number of canker sores on a plant-based diet. I've always gotten one here and there but I started to get multiple large ones and it got so bad where my entire tongue hurt. I've yet to figure out why, but eating some red meat consistently is the only thing that manages to get rid of them almost entirely. I thought it may be zinc so I tried supplementing with it instead but it did nothing. So either I'm not absorbing it from the supplement well or its something else.

Amarillyde wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2019 9:41 am Eating Dr Greger's daily dozen plus tofu seems to be a good solution for me, to meet pretty much all targets. With a bit more organisation, that might be achievable more regularly in the future (even though it's a bit too fruit heavy and low in vegetables for what I'd like). That is, if I don't give up sooner because of the fatigue etc. :/

Eating Greger's daily dozen should have you meeting most of your nutrient needs on paper. The only nutrient that you may come consistently short on is calcium because he oddly never emphasizes calcium rich vegetables.

But I'd suggest giving up on Greger's diet before you tried something else. Its overly rigid for no good reason. And let's be frank here, Greger looks ghastly. He has the physique and appearance of an old man despite being in his mid 40's.


In any case, you shouldn't continue a diet that makes you feel poorly because there are some people that claim its healthy. I don't know what you were eating before but I'd suggest making reasonable guesses about what may make a difference and add those foods back into your diet. And I would caution against going towards another extreme. Diets rich in whole plant foods have a variety of benefits so try to keep around as many of the whole grains, legumes, fruits, veggies, etc as you can.