Veering to Vegan

[taintmonger]

My best friend is a very successful professional wrestler. He's also been a vegetarian for about 10 years. Recently, he made the jump to full-on vegan. This means not consuming products made from animals (dairy, eggs, etc.). The reason he switched was a film: Forks Over Knives

Comments

[anonymous]

Big can of worms, diet, and for every expert who claims something is good for you, there is one who takes the opposite tack and holds up a cross in its direction. People have dumped all over the China Study, the imperfect methodologies and all, but you don't have to look very far to see that the richest countries are the fattest, and a whole of what kills folks off here are illnesses of consumption. Leading killers in the USA :

* Heart disease: 599,413
* Cancer: 567,628
* Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
* Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
* Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
* Alzheimer's disease: 79,003
* Diabetes: 68,705
* Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
* Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
* Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909

And a whole bunch of what kills us goes to crap we eat and exercise we don't do. Anybody who thinks that bacon-wrapped triple-cheese Whopper and larges fries are better for you than fresh fruit and vegetables is not playing with a full deck.

[taintmonger]

I'd like to think I've been taking pretty good care of myself the past 10 years. No soda. No alcohol (save 1 celebratory shot when my best friend became a pro-wrestling world champion). No drugs or cigarettes ever. I'm pretty fit.
But I don't always eat the best. Now, maybe some think I do compared to others, but I don't hold others to my standards. I eat pizza often. I go to Wendy's probably once a week, Taco Bell almost as often. And I'm not ordering salad no dressing.
Forks Over Knives is controversial. The China Study, as you said, can be made Swiss cheese. But if it and its ensuing dietary changes gets me to better health and a psychological aversion to certain things (which is key, in my opinion), then it may be one of the best things I've ever seen.
(Thanks for your take, Steve -- provided this was your comment)

[anonymous]

Yep, me. didn't realize the sig default was anonymous, and when I tried this time using Facebook, LJ didn't like that, either.

Steve