The Pro-Vegetarianism Thread!

[FunkyBrother]

I have been a veggie for about 12 years. The reason being I don’t want something to die for my dinner.



Humans are not carnivores. We are omnivores and have been designed to eat mostly plant based food, although we can have a little bit of meat/fish.



Carnivores have sharp pointed teeth to tear into animals. Humans have flat-molars for chewing plant-based food.



Carnivores have sharp claws for ripping other animals apart. Humans have hands for picking fruit off trees.



Carnivores’ intestines are about 3 times the length of their trunk to get the highly toxic protein out before it does damage. Human intestines are about 10 times the length of their trunk for extracting nutrients out of plant based foods.



Next time you are driving down a country lane hungry and see a rabbit dead in the road, if you was a carnivore you’d stop your car, jump out and get your teeth straight into it. Humans do not (although I presume there will be a few strange people ;0) )



Carnivores only eat other carnivores in emergency. Normally they will eat plant eaters.



Carnivores do not sweat from their bodies and instead just their tongues.



In the Bible it is clear that originally man was veggie then ate BITS of meat after the flood.



In the Bible meat is ate rarely and for very special occasions. Not like today where it is eaten everyday and the bulk of most people’s diets. The difference being the Royal food in Daniel 1, were people were getting ill with disease because of their over indulgence.



I THINK WE SHOULD ALSO RESPECT OTHER ANIMALS FOR WHAT THEY ARE:



Cows are not carnivores and should be fed on grass.

Chickens should be fed on corn etc.



But dogs are NOT vegetarian, and should be fed on RAW meat. (Their stomach is very acidic and will kill any bacteria. That’s why they can burry a bone with some meat on and dig it up a few weeks later and still be okay.)



Apart from the inhumane treatment of animals, I think the main problems with eating meat are:

1, People eat far, far too much.

2, The meat is pumped with hormones, antibiotics and fed on cement and other animal remains.



Vegetarians should be healthier than they are.

The main problem is, is most veggies believe Monsanto’s (World leader in GM crops (including no-seed bearing ones) and deadly fertilisers) lies about Soy being a health food. (It is important to distinguish between fermented soy, such as soy sauce, miso and tempeh, and the soy additives and 'soy protein' found in so many foods. The fermentation process removes most of the potentially harmful compounds that are found in more modern types of soy additives and non-fermented soy products. For a more direct examination of soy, see our article entitled 'Soy Story' which appeared in)



http://campaignfortruth.com/Eclub/ses/sessearch.php?cnt=50&q=soy

 

[Beastt]

Eating cholesterol does not cause heart disease!
http://campaignfortruth.com/Eclub/Eclub%20searchable/040205/CTM%20-%20heart%20disease.htm

Vitamin C is used to make up the collagen fibers for our arteries.


Scurvy is when you take away the vitamin C from our bodies and your arteries literally fall apart.



Nearly all forms of heart disease are a slower form of scurvy. This is when you’re still getting some vitamin C, but not enough.



When this happens you start to get holes in your veins, but then the so-called “bad cholesterol” which is really your life saving friend fills in the holes.



At one time man would get his vitamin C from food in summer then in winter, when enough wasn’t available, his arteries would start to get holes and the “so-called” bad-cholesterol would act as a repair until the hotter weather came back and the vitamin C returned to his diet.



But the problem today is that some people have a vitamin C deficiency all year round and therefore get heart disease.



This is the result of 1 or 2 things:



Not getting enough vitamin C in their diet. Or/and



Destroying the vitamin C.



When you get stressed you produce adrenaline. It takes one molecule of vitamin C to make one molecule of adrenaline. So when someone gets stressed they’re depleting themselves of vitamin C. That is why stressed people get heart disease.



Many lifestyle things like coffee produces adrenaline.



And if you smoke, you might as well get a Dyson Vacuum cleaner and suck all the vitamin C out of you. That’s why smokers get heart disease.



If you take a vitamin C supplement make sure it’s complex vitamin C. Vitamin C is a big vitamin with different parts to it. Just taking vitamin C as ascorbic acid won’t work. Take high strength. I take anywhere between 2 and 6 grams a day.

The Cholesterol Myths

by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD


The idea that too much animal fat and high cholesterol are dangerous to your heart and vessels is nothing but a myth. Here are some astonishing and frightening facts (see below)

Evidence from the new cholesterol-lowering trial PROSPER, that statin treatment causes cancer.
​

http://www.ravnskov.nu/ncep_guidelines New cholesterol guidelines for converting healthy people into patients

http://qjmed.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/96/12/927?ijkey=172mwKXqzgmtE&keytype=ref Read Dr. Ravnskov´s thought-provoking paper "High cholesterol may protect against infections and atherosclerosis", recently published in the prestigious Quarterly Journal of Medicine..

http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/benefits_cholest.html...or choose the popular-scientific version

Here are the facts! Click on the blue arrows if you want the scientific evidence!

1 Cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance vital to the cells of all mammals. There are no such things as good or bad cholesterol, but mental stress, physical activity and change of body weight may influence the level of blood cholesterol. A high cholesterol is not dangerous by itself, but may reflect an unhealthy condition, or it may be totally innocent.

http://www.ravnskov.nu/myth2.htm2 A high blood cholesterol is said to promote atherosclerosis and thus also coronary heart disease. But many studies have shown that people whose blood cholesterol is low become just as atherosclerotic as people whose cholesterol is high.

http://www.ravnskov.nu/myth3.htm3 Your body produces three to four times more cholesterol than you eat. The production of cholesterol increases when you eat little cholesterol and decreases when you eat much. This explains why the ”prudent” diet cannot lower cholesterol more than on average a few per cent.

http://www.ravnskov.nu/myth4.htm4 There is no evidence that too much animal fat and cholesterol in the diet promotes atherosclerosis or heart attacks. For instance, more than twenty studies have shown that people who have had a heart attack haven't eaten more fat of any kind than other people, and degree of atherosclerosis at autopsy is unrelated with the diet.

http://www.ravnskov.nu/myth5.htm5 The only effective way to lower cholesterol is with drugs, but neither heart mortality or total mortality have been improved with drugs the effect of which is cholesterol-lowering only. On the contrary, these drugs are dangerous to your health and may shorten your life.

http://www.ravnskov.nu/myth6.htm6 The new cholesterol-lowering drugs, the statins, do prevent cardio-vascular disease, but this is due to other mechanisms than cholesterol-lowering. Unfortunately, they also stimulate cancer in rodents, disturb the functions of the muscles, the heart and the brain and pregnant women taking statins may give birth to children with malformations more severe than those seen after thalidomide.

http://www.ravnskov.nu/myth7.htm7 Many of these facts have been presented in scientific journals and books for decades but are rarely told to the public by the proponents of the diet-heart idea.

http://www.ravnskov.nu/myth8.htm8 The reason why laymen, doctors and most scientists have been misled is because opposing and disagreeing results are systematically ignored or misquoted in the scientific press.

From: http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm
​

This easily rates as one of the most irresponsible and clearly erroneous things I've ever read. I have to ask you, FunkyBrother, are these advertizements? They certainly sound like advertizements.

Atherosclerosis is not a condition wherein holes begin to form in the arteries. I'm not sure where you get that but I hope the average reader is smart enough to spot that claim as the tripe that it is. Secondly, if you do have the spontaneous formation of a whole in an artery wall, cholesterol isn't going to fill in the hole. If it's small enough, compounds excreted by plateletts will begin forming a solidifying web of materials to block he hole until the body can regenerate enough artery wall tissue to repair the injury. Cholesterol isn't used to repair vessel walls. That has to be among the most ridiculous claims ever made.

Cholesterol is essential but dietary cholesterol is not. Cholesterol is utilized in making cell membranes and has a few additional functions within the body. But just as within the body of any other natural herbivore, the body produces all the cholesterol it needs. Yet, in study after study, there has been an indesputable link between cholesterol ingestion and the formation of atherosclerosis, leading to heart disease. One of the few studies which can claim otherwise utilized a pure crystalline form of cholesterol which was unaccompanied by saturated fats. Cholesterol by itself will not cause the arterial plaques common to atherosclerotic build-up. However, such a study is irrelevant to diet since all cholesterol in the diet is accompanied with saturated fat, and in the vast majority of cases, a very high level of saturated fat.

When people die outside of the hospital from unverified cause, most states required that an autopsy be performed to determine the cause of death and rule out foul-play. In a great number of unattended deaths, the cause is myocardial infarction, (heart attack). In such cases, the coronary arteries of the heart are examined for blockage. When a blockage is found, the yellowish-white, waxy plug is pulled from the artery and sent to the pathology lab. In every case, the same report comes back concerning the substances from which the plaque was formed; saturated fat and cholesterol.

A few studies have been funded by those who profit from selling foods high in these two substances and intentionally engineered to provide the desired results. One of which is the study I mentioned above utilizing crystalline cholesterol which was liquified and injected into the test subjects. Another trick which can be utilized is to raise the dietary cholesterol of the test subjects to ridiculous levels prior to the period studied. Once daily cholesterol intake reaches 400 to 800 milligrams, additional cholesterol has only a very minor affect on syrum cholesterol levels. So if you first put your test subjects on a diet which is extremely high in cholesterol, then raise that level by a given amount, the valid claim can be made that additional cholesterol added to the diet showed only a very minor affect on syrum cholesterol levels. Such a study is intentionally designed to be misleading. That's why the industries most likely to be harmed by a national reduction in dietary saturated fat and cholesterol utilize such studies to cloud the waters and make the real dangers of cholesterol and saturated fats more difficult to see.

From 1963 to 1965, doctors undertook a massive study involving the autopsies of over 20,000 bodies all over the world, (The International Atherosclerotic Project). The result of this study clearly showed that where diets are high in saturated fats and cholesterol, the incidents of heart attack and stroke are the highest. Where diets are relatively low in these compounds, heart attack and stroke are almost unheard of. A number of other studies have pursued similar paths. One, in particular, studied Japanese people and followed their change to more western-like diets and the resulting increase in atherosclerosis, stroke and heart attack. Those who stay with a more traditional Japanese diet rarely suffer from these diseases while those to change to a western diet quickly begin to display the same rates of heart disease as those living in western cultures. The same thing was found during studies of wounded and killed soldiers during the Korean war and again in the Framingham Heart Study. There are those who will try to produce a smoke screen but those who really look into the research as well as how it was done and by whom it was funded, will find the same thing everytime; saturated fat and cholesterol are unmistakenly linked to higher rates of atherosclerosis, heart attack and stroke. These conditions are directly responsible for more than 35% of deaths annually in the United States. That makes them consistently the greatest killer and by a good margin. If you check charts showing the top ten causes of death annually in the U.S. (or other western cultures), you'll find that heart attack/heart disease is always the number one cause while scurvy doesn't even make the list other than among the many things lumped into the "miscellaneous" catagory.

 

[FunkyBrother]

I would argue the medical world's view is erroneous and irresponsible and KILLING people.


Nearly all forms of Heart Disease are the result of a Vitamin C (complex) deficiency.
If our medical world is so good at stopping heart disease with their drugs and misplaced dietary advice THEN WHY IS HEART DISEASE STILL THE NUMBER ONE KILLER?

(Although I admit in the U.S.A Death by medicine has now overtaken heart disease in the death stats).

I know people who have supplemented with complex Vitamin C and are now free of their heart problems. Maybe God gives a miracle to people who happen to take complex Vitamin C.

Heart Disease is a slower form of Scurvy and like Scurvy it need not be killing ONE SINGLE PERSON Today.

It took hundreds of years and hundreds of thousands of deaths before knowing the cause of Scurvy and the medical world accepting it and many years were spent lobotomizing people with Pellagra and poisoning them with arsenic despite being told it was a vitamin B3 deficiency. Not a lot as changed.



Heart Disease
by Phillip Day

Profile
The leading cause of death in the western world today is heart disease. Over 3,000 Americans die EVERY DAY from heart disease in its various forms. So, if we are interested in living to be 100, heart disease must be one of the first hurdles we must overcome. Is that possible?

If you were able to remove heart disease from the general population, our world today would be radically different from what we see. How many relatives would still be with us? How much more money would there be available for proper research to conquer other, less well-known problems?

We are about to find out that heart disease can end today based entirely on existing scientific knowledge. That is why I become increasingly tired of the whining British National Health Service and its government over cash shortages in Britain and how financially strapped the hospitals and health services are today. None of this would be happening if the population and its health services WOULD EXERCISE PREVENTION INSTEAD OF CURE. For who, in reality, is responsible for the soaring costs of healthcare today, if not we, the population, through not taking proper care of ourselves? That's our responsibility, by the way, not the government's.

Types of heart disease
All forms of heart disease will be dealt with in this chapter as the approaches to them are essentially the same. Let's first take a look at the major problems:

Cardiomyopathy: Any disease affecting the heart muscle's ability to pump juice. The heart works through electrical/muscular contraction. When this becomes impaired, the decreased efficiency of the heart to circulate blood begins to cause warning signs. Shortness of breath, arrhythmia (see below), fatigue, a chronic, unproductive cough and blue extremities are common indications.

Congestive heart failure: Failure or impairment of the pumping action of the ventricle of the heart, resulting in a back pressure of blood, engorging the veins in the neck creating fluid retention in the tissues, or edema. Shortness of breath, even when lying prone, swelling of the legs, etc.

Myocardial infarction: The classic heart attack, where part of the heart muscle, usually the left ventricle, dies, following an interruption of the blood supply. The patient experiences a 'heart attack' - an abrupt, severe chest pain, which may spread to the arms and throat.

Arrhythmia: Any disturbance or abnormality in the regular beating of the heart. These include specific variations, such as ectopic beats, atrial fibrillations, ventricular tachycardias and severe ventricular arrhythmias. Arrhythmias may result from a whole host of different heart conditions. More ominously, the Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary warns: "Arrhythmias may… occur without apparent cause."

Atherosclerosis: Fatty lipoprotein plaque build-up in the arteries, which prevents proper blood flow, leading to heart failure and other conditions.

Arteriosclerosis: Hardening or thickening of small artery walls. The term is often used interchangeably with atherosclerosis (incorrectly).

Thrombosis: A condition in which liquid blood solidifies or thickens in an artery, preventing blood flow. This may happen in the brain artery, impairing blood flow to the brain, resulting in a stroke. Thrombosis in any artery disrupts blood flow to the tissue it supplies. Coronary thrombosis often results in myocardial infarction, or 'heart attack'.

Angina pectoris: What I term 'the slow heart attack'. Pain in the centre of the chest, spreading to the arms and jaw. Often brought on by exercising, where the demand for blood from the heart exceeds the cardiovascular system's ability to provide it. Angina often occurs as a result of damaged or occluded arteries (athero/arteriosclerosis and other heart conditions).

Embolism: A blood clot or other solid body restricting blood flow to vital organs (including the heart and lungs) and tissues. The embolus may become detached and be carried to another part of the body, where it becomes lodged, creating localised or systemic problems.

Heart murmurs: A mitral valve prolapse occurs when this heart valve becomes misshapen or deformed, causing a leakage of fluid between the left upper chamber (atria) of the heart and the left ventricle. Such murmurs may be detected by stethoscope.

Commentary
So, here we are, examining the leading killer of humankind in the western industrial nations…. Doesn't that give you a clue to the where the problems may lie immediately?

The heart and its circulatory (cardiovascular) system are all about tubes, a pump and lots of blood. Notice the problems described above in semi-medical vernacular really come down to the fact that if you don't want to get the leading cause of death, you must have a strong and efficient heart muscle, clean, well constructed pipes (veins and arteries) and blood that is pure and not filled with the kind of debris and rubbish you might find in a Staten Island junkyard.

The human heart beats around 100,000 times every 24 hours, pumping six quarts of blood through a freeway system of over 96,000 miles of blood vessels. This staggering feat is the equivalent of the heart moving 6,300 gallons a day, or shunting 115,000,000 gallons of blood by time you reach fifty. None too shabby, eh?

Then consider that those six quarts of blood each of us have are made up of over 24 trillion cells, seven million new ones of which are produced by our body every second, to replace worn-out cells and continue the work of transporting nutrients and removing waste and toxins. This amazing pump, responsible for all the action, has the capability to run maintenance- and service-free for decades without missing a beat. And no, it doesn't come with a warranty.

Coronary heart disease, heart attacks, angina pectoris, thrombosis, myocardial infarctions - trouble by any name - can be caused by certain types of drugs, as we shall see, and also by coronary arteries that have become progressively clogged by fatty material which prevents normal blood-flow (atherosclerosis). If you take your garden hose, which is supplying water to your lawn sprinkler (in countries which allow you to have one), and bend the hose, the water flow ceases to the sprinkler. Likewise, if the arteries supplying blood to the heart become clogged with deposits, or blood clots brought on by sticky platelets, the same starving of liquid to the pump will occur.

Drs. Pauling and Rath
But it's the underlying cause of almost all heart problems that is the most provocative and misunderstood issue in medicine today. Two doctors, Linus Pauling and Matthias Rath, popularised the scientific truth that had been whispered fearfully in medical corridors for decades, but which had failed to come out because of huge vested interests in the corporate profitability of heart disease - namely that heart disease was primarily a fulminating deficiency of vitamin C complex and the amino acids lysine and proline, which help form the collagen fibres that knit the artery walls together. Dr Matthias Rath sums up his findings:

"Animals don't get heart attacks because they produce vitamin C in their bodies, which protects their blood vessel walls. In humans, unable to produce vitamin C (a condition known as hypoascorbemia), dietary vitamin deficiency weakens these walls. Cardiovascular disease is an early form of scurvy. Clinical studies document that optimum daily intakes of vitamins and other essential nutrients halt and reverse coronary heart disease naturally.

The single most important difference between the metabolism of human beings and most other living species is the dramatic difference in the body pool of vitamin C. The body reservoir of vitamin C in people is on average 10 to 100 times lower than the vitamin C levels in animals."

What a revelation, eh?

Low density lipoprotein - Lp(a)
The makings of scurvy
Scurvy occurs when the collagen matrix in the body begins to break down. With heart disease, the scurvy process is much slower, sometimes taking years to develop. As Dr Rath reports, vitamin C is essential for the production of collagen and elastin, the elastic, fibrous materials which knit the walls of arteries and blood vessels together. Collagen fibres are a lot like the steel girders you see when builders are erecting a new skyscraper. Each fibre has been calculated to be far tougher and stronger than an iron wire of comparable width. Collagen cells form the structure for arteries, organs and skin, and so a chronic vitamin C deficiency causes the beginning of a collapse in the arterial walls, necessitating a healing process to commence, in the form of lipoprotein(a) fats which the body attempts to use to bond the thousands of tiny breaches in the arterial walls.

These lipoproteins are Nature's perfect Band-Aid. They are extremely sticky and form the atherosclerotic deposits associated with advanced forms of heart disease today. Cardiovascular medicine, unaware or willingly ignorant of the underlying nutritional deficiency cause of atherosclerosis, focuses its attention on vilifying the lipoproteins' LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol content as one of the primary causes of heart diseases, when it is in fact the healing (survival response) precursor brought on by a chronic vitamin C deficiency. Today the drug industry has predictably mobilised a multi-billion-dollar business of anti-cholesterol drugs, which have wrought devastating results in cardiac patients, necessitating a further $20 billion drug program to combat all the side effects. Rath and Pauling discovered that

• Optimum vitamin C intakes (600 mg - 3 g daily), along with supportive intakes of vitamin E (800-1,000 IU), the amino acids lysine and proline, the B vitamins, essential fatty acids (EFAs), magnesium, minerals, trace minerals and amino acids, provide healthy arteries
  <LI class=storybody>A long-term vitamin C deficiency will lead to atherosclerotic deposits in the arterial walls to cover the breaches caused by the disintegrating collagen, eventually resulting in coronary heart disease and, further north, strokes in the brain
• Vitamin C depletion over a few months will lead to massive blood loss through collagen disintegration, resulting in leaky artery walls, collapsing organs and death by scurvy

Vitamin C depletion (complete absence of the nutrient) in the industrial nations is almost an impossibility, even with the ghastly diets with which we feed ourselves today. However long-term vitamin C deficiency is very common and occurs in almost all the population, hence the prevalence of heart disease in all its forms.

Coronary arteries sustain the most stress since they are the primary roadways for blood being pumped by the heart. The need for ongoing repairs of the leaky artery walls produces an overcompensation of repair materials, such as cholesterol, triglycerides and low-density lipoproteins (LDL), produced in the liver, which lead to infarctions as this plaque builds up. Other areas, such as arteries in the legs, are also affected. Varicose veins often develop as a result of this ongoing healing process (see Varicose veins).

Collagen in our body is made up of proteins composed of amino acids, particularly lysine and proline. An optimum supply of vitamin C complex, E, proline and lysine are decisive factors for the regeneration of connective tissue in the artery wall and thus for the reversal of cardiovascular disease. These factors are almost never prescribed by allopathic medicine, which is why, in spite of the most technical medicines and surgical procedures available, heart disease continues to be the main killer of industrialised, commercially fed, vitamin C-deficient humanity.
...........

 

[FunkyBrother]

........Let's look at the problem in action
An interesting parallel can be seen in nature with hibernating animals which, during their extended sleep period, deplete their vitamin C reserves, due to lack of incoming nutrition. As a result, fat molecules are deposited along their artery walls, which lead to a thickening of these vessels. In spring however, once these animals recover from their hibernation and begin consuming vegetation and fruits, such as berries, their vitamin C, amino acid and antioxidant intakes rise sharply, resulting in a reversal of these repair factors, leading to a re-stabilisation of their arterial walls and their normal function.

Lack of antioxidant material is also a major contributing factor. Current theories on this subject suggest that oxidative elements, known as free radicals, are brought into the body through smoking, car exhaust, pollution and smog, damaging the collagen in the artery walls, bringing on the need for further lipoprotein repairs. It is believed the damage is done because electron-hungry free radicals rob healthy cells to produce degradation in the cell and cell-death. These oxidative elements are now widely thought to be the leading cause of pre-ageing and cell degradation.

Autopsies of military personnel killed during the Korean and Vietnam wars showed that up to 75% of the victims had developed some form of atherosclerosis even at ages of 25 or younger. Yet those servicemen who had been captured by the enemy and incarcerated on rice and vegetable diets were later, upon release and a medical examination, found to have cleared the plaque during their period of captivity.

Victims of accidents are often found to have developed atherosclerotic deposits that would have become a problem for them, had they lived longer. Dr Rath comments:

"The main cause of atherosclerotic deposits is the biological weakness of the artery walls caused by chronic vitamin deficiency [malnutrition]. The atherosclerotic deposits are the consequence of this chronic weakness; they develop as a compensatory stabilizing cast of Nature to strengthen these weakened blood vessel walls."

Heart disease studies with nutrition
So chronic vitamin and mineral deficiencies produce a breakdown of collagen in the arterial walls, leading to increased artery wall tension, narrowing of the artery diameter, thickening of artery walls and therefore high blood pressure. The result is heart attack, strokes (impairment of arterial flow to the brain), high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) and heart failure. Interestingly, as time marches forward, the public's ability to garner adequate supplies of vitamin C from its diet through fruits and vegetables becomes progressively less as our food chain is corrupted further with processed, chemical foods and the public's penchant to move away from healthy, natural foods in favour of the more 'tasty' and better advertised artificial alternatives.

Ironically heart disease manifested itself less in medieval times during spring, summer and autumn since the predominantly vegetarian diet of the average working class citizen often provided well mineralised vegetables and fruits. Winter however was another matter. Freezing was not possible back then, and nutritional intake took a dive as diets only comprised those foods that could be adequately salted and preserved during the winter months. Strokes and heart disease were common during these months.

Back then, of course, the killer was the more extreme of the vitamin C deficiency ailments - scurvy - which resulted when sailors, for instance, dramatically halted their vitamin C intake, due to the restriction of provisions available on board their ships.

Dr James Enstrom and colleagues from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) dramatically proved the heart disease link with vitamin C when they studied the vitamin intake of 11,000 Americans over 10 years. Funded by the US Congress, their study demonstrated that citizens taking in at least 300 mg per day of vitamin C in their diet or through supplementation cut their risk of heart disease by up to 50% in males and 40% in females. This study alone should have made headline news. Who before could have claimed such a reduction in the number of deaths from the leading disease killer in the western world? But nothing was mentioned! The study focused primarily on vitamin C, but, as we will see, other nutrients also play a key role in the prevention or complete elimination of heart disease. We must always remember too that nutrients in the body work in synergy, not in isolation, so any supplementation regime we embark upon should be a complete program, together with a suitable diet.

Dr G C Willis demonstrated that vitamin C complex could reverse atherosclerosis. Willis gave a sample of his patients 1.5 grams of vitamin C a day and gave the remainder of the group no vitamin C. After a year, the atherosclerotic deposits in the patients fed the vitamin C had decreased in 30% of the cases. In contrast, no reduction in deposits was observed in the control group, which had even grown further. In spite of the clear evidence over 40 years ago of the benefits of just vitamin C through Willis' work, no follow-up study was ever commissioned.

Professor Gey, from the University of Basel in Switzerland, conducted studies in which he compared the vitamin C, vitamin A (beta carotene) and cholesterol intakes of citizens living in Northern Europe with those in the southern regions of the continent. His findings were recorded thus:

• Those living in the northern nations of Europe had the highest levels of cardiovascular disease and the lowest blood levels of vitamins
  <LI class=storybody>Southern European populations had the reverse statistics of their northern counterparts and so were more healthy
• An optimum intake of vitamins C, E and A had a far greater impact on decreasing risks of cardiovascular disease than the reduction of cholesterol, now becoming increasingly viewed (correctly) as a secondary factor in heart disease risk (an inevitable result of the primary deficiency of nutrients leading to the breakdown of the arterial walls).

Gey's report also highlighted the preference for the Mediterranean diet, rich in wine and olive oil, abundant in bioflavonoids (another part of the C complex) and vitamin E, as a main prevention regimen for heart disease in almost all its forms.

Further studies showed that these nutrients separately produced impressive results for cardiac disease prevention:

• Vitamin C intake lowers cardiovascular risk by 50%
  <LI class=storybody>Vitamin E intake lowers cardiovascular risk by one-third, documented in 87,000 study participants over six years
  <LI class=storybody>Beta carotene (vitamin A) intake lowers cardiovascular risk over 30%, documented in more than 87,000 study participants over six years
• No prescription drug has ever come close to matching these figures in preventing heart disease

However, when these nutrients were combined with other synergistic agents, such as magnesium, vitamin B3 (nicotinic acid), vitamin B5 (pantothenate) and the amino acid carnitine, and levels of these maintained in the body over the long-term, near total prevention could be expected, and in those already suffering from a variety of cardiac ailments, a clear record of efficacy in reversing these conditions was observed.

Learning from our animals
While the World Health Organization announces that more than 12 million people each year die from the consequences of heart disease and strokes, this death rate is just not occurring in the animal kingdom. When vitamin C levels in animals were measured, procured as a result of their diets and own production of vitamin C, they were found to have between 1 g and 20 g available a day, when compared with human bodyweight. Humans on the other hand, unable to produce their own vitamin C, are now consuming less and less foods containing the essential nutrients available in fruits and vegetables, themselves now depleted of vital nutrients because of commercial and over-farming practices. Some do not even make the miserable 'Recommended Daily Allowance' (RDA) of C - 60 mg a day. This dramatic paradigm shift in nutritional intake by the human over the past 150 years, from a diet almost completely vegetarian (5-10% animal protein intake - meat was largely unavailable to many of the poorer citizens) to one dominated by animal food sources, has manifested itself in the most disastrous death toll from cardiovascular disease, which can now be identified primarily as a metabolic, nutritional deficiency disease.

High blood pressure and arrhythmia
Modern medicine does not know the actual cause of high blood pressure in many of its cases, referring to these unknowns as "essential hypertension". Drugs prescribed can be diuretics, beta-blockers, blood thinners (including the rat poison, Warfarin) and other medications. Yet studies again exist demonstrating that vitamin C , coenzyme Q10 , magnesium and the amino acid arginine are able to lower blood pressure very effectively without the attendant side-effects of prescription medications. Vitamin C also increases the production of prostacyclin, a small molecule hormone that relaxes the blood vessel walls and also keeps the blood viscosity at optimum levels.

Arrhythmia, or inconsistent heartbeat, is also much misunderstood by conventional medicine. The term "paroxysmal arrhythmia", so often used, simply means "causes unknown". Beta-blockers, calcium antagonists and pacemakers are often prescribed in ignorance of the true underlying nutritional causes. Rath states:

"The most frequent cause of irregular heartbeat is a chronic deficiency in vitamins and other essential nutrients in millions of electrical heart muscle cells. Long-term, these deficiencies of essential nutrients directly cause, or aggravate, disturbances in the creation or conduction of the electrical impulses triggering the heartbeat. Scientific research and clinical studies have already documented the value of magnesium, calcium, carnitine, coenzyme Q10 and other co-factors in helping to normalise different forms of irregular heartbeat, thereby improving the quality of life for the patients."

Other problems linked to the heart
Coffee is known to cause heart problems. Coffee stimulates the release of the hormone adrenalin, which relies on vitamin C as the catalyst for its production. Stress also produces adrenalin, drawing down and depleting supplies of vitamin C in the body, resulting in C deficiency problems. The Pill and other hormonal medications also have the effect of drawing down levels of C in the body, producing the attendant effects of heart disease in its various forms.

The great fatty acid boys
Fats are essential, which is why they call them 'the essential fatty acids', but they have to be the right kinds of fats! Omega-3 and omega-6 oils especially are the two important types of essential fatty acids. The suffixes '3' and '6' refer to differences in the particular oil's chemical structure. These 3 and 6 oils are vital for optimum health and play a central role in preventing and healing heart complaints. Needless to say, most of us get plenty of the commercial junk fats, which the body struggles to break down and eliminate, but few of the sixes and threes (and nines), let alone in their optimum configurations.

The main omega-3 oil is alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), prevalent in flaxseed (58%), pumpkin seeds and walnuts. Fish oils, such as contained in oily fish like salmon, cod and mackerel, contain the other important omega-3 oils, DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid). (Ensure these fish are fresh and cold-caught, NOT FARMED).

Linoleic acid or cis-linoleic acid is the main omega-6 oil and is found in many plant and vegetable oils, including safflower (73%), sunflower, corn, and sesame. The most useful type of omega-6 oil is gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), found in evening primrose oil, used to treat kids with ADD/ADHD problems. Once in the body, omega-3 and omega-6 are converted to prostaglandins, hormone-like substances that regulate many metabolic functions, particularly inflammatory processes. (For more information on the fat boys, see A Guide to Nutritional Supplements).
...........

 

[FunkyBrother]

...........Summary
If we examine the three main areas for heart disease treatment and prevention, we arrive at diet (and supplementation), exercise and lifestyle choices (rejecting smoking, alcohol, drugs and adverse character traits, such as anger, jealousy and irritability) as a means of normalising blood pressure, adrenal hormone secretions and even androgens (male hormones), which are linked to male pattern baldness and a higher risk of heart disease.

The diet, exercise and lifestyle strategies relevant to avoiding heart disease are explained in the Take action section below. The dietary and supplement regimens are designed to optimise nutrition in a way that is very similar to the nutritional intake of those peoples who do not suffer these problems. Modified nutrition and an associated vitamin and mineral supplementation assure optimum protection against heart attack and stroke.

THESE SIMPLE MEASURES ARE ALSO THE SAME FOR OTHER SERIOUS DISEASES, meaning, as we proceed, that we can develop a common lifestyle strategy that will work across the board for all the major problem areas. This strategy must be applied consistently. Those looking for a magic formula to repair a health condition need to know that the magic formula is doing the right thing and doing it CONSISTENTLY. Once again, there are things we must do, and there are things we must avoid.

Take action
So, here we go. If you have a heart complaint, or are recovering from a heart attack or stroke, firstly engage the services of an MD or ND trained in nutritional medicine. Important considerations are contraindications with medications which may have been prescribed to you. In Health Wars, there are two chapters on the heart which get into more detail on the problems with stress, existing diabolical medications for heart conditions, which come with their own serious side-effect problems, and how these affect your performance and well-being. Heart patients, under medical supervision and recommendation, may benefit from the following:

• <LI class=storybody>DIET: COMMENCE THE FOOD FOR THOUGHT LIFESTYLE REGIMEN
  <LI class=storybody>DIET: Note the things in this regime you need to give up!
  <LI class=storybody>RESTORING NUTRIENT BALANCE: COMMENCE THE BASIC SUPPLEMENT PROGRAM, ensuring:
  <LI class=storybody>Vitamin C complex (ascorbates plus bioflavonoids), 3-5 g per day, spread throughout the day
  <LI class=storybody>Vitamin E, 800-1000 IU per day
  <LI class=storybody>Vitamin A emulsion, as directed
  <LI class=storybody>Lysine and proline, as directed
  <LI class=storybody>Magnesium, 200-400 mg, three times per day
  <LI class=storybody>Coenzyme Q10, 150-300 mg per day
  <LI class=storybody>L-Carnitine, 300 mg, three times per day
  <LI class=storybody>Vitamin B1, 200-250 mg per day
  <LI class=storybody>Omega 3 & 6 essential fatty acid complex (EFAs), as directed
  <LI class=storybody>TIP: Avoid stress, even if it means ditching your whiz $2 million-a-year city job to go farm Christmas trees in Moose Jaw. You can't drive that Ferrari if you're dead
  <LI class=storybody>TIP: Avoid the contraceptive Pill and take some serious medical advice on discontinuing HRT, ERT and other hormonal medications
  <LI class=storybody>TIP: Avoid eating heavy amounts of any commercially produced meats, especially the red variety (see Health Wars - Meating the Main Problem)
• TIP: Exercise wisely but regularly, according to your physician's advice

From http://campaignfortruth.com/Eclub/Eclub%20searchable/040205/CTM%20-%20heart%20disease.htm

 

[fitmom]

FunkyBrother, I do enjoy reading your posts, and respect your choices re. being a vegetarian etc. I know that you are a researcher. I have some nutrition/wellnes training, not a degree, but an ad on certification to my PT cert. So, I am somewhat knowledgable, but I do not hold a degree in nutrition. As such, I must 'function' within my scope of practice, and am limited when dispensing advice, sometimes excluding my personal opinion.

Having said that, could you please offer your professional credentials?
For the safety of people who read these threads?
I give my credentials, and dispense advice within my scope, even here on CF>
God Bless,J

 

[liter]

I have been a vegan for almost two years.

I read a article in a magazine about the ways that animals were slaugtered and i would eat it no more.

I'm in better health conditions than i was before i went vegan except for now i have to take pills for my low iron.

happy vegan

 

[fitmom]

I read a article in a magazine about the ways that animals were slaugtered and i would eat it no more.

I'm in better health conditions than i was before i went vegan except for now i have to take pills for my low iron.

happy vegan

I live in happy ignorance of how animals are slaughtered. Knowledge might be enough to make anyone go vegan. I won't eat veal, only becuase of how the calves are treated. J

 

[Beastt]

I have been a vegan for almost two years.

I read a article in a magazine about the ways that animals were slaugtered and i would eat it no more.

I'm in better health conditions than i was before i went vegan except for now i have to take pills for my low iron.

happy vegan

I'm not sure what you're eliminating from your diet that you shouldn't be. I was raised a vegetarian and changed to a vegan diet 12 years ago. There isn't any reason you should be iron deficient. While people tend to believe that humans are omnivores, physiologically, we're herbivores. We carry traits from mouth size to facial muscle structure to salivary characteristics, stomach acid, bowel length, shape and texture and nearly every other classifying trait which shows us to be designed for a purely non-meat diet.

While many vegans and vegetarians do tend to be concerned about iron deficiency, that concern is usually unwarranted. Statistically, vegans and vegetarians suffer fewer cases of iron deficiency than do people who consume animal products including animal flesh. Vegans do have reason to be concerned about vitamin B12, but that is largely due to the degree of cleanliness associated with western living. As much as we believe that being less concerned about being dirt and germ free leads to disease, we're actually so clean that we eliminate the bacteria on the surface of roots and tubers which produce the tiny amounts of B12 that our bodies require. We do fine on no more than 1 microgram of B12 per day and can store a six month supply in our livers. Of the B12 that we do use, our bodies actually recycle about 70 to 75%. As such it's obvious that we're designed to be very healthy on just the tiny amount of B12 which comes from not scrubbing the very skin from our vegetables. But should we not get this tiny quantity, the results can be devastating and irreversable. The damage to nerves can leave one with a permanent disability.

Many, many vegan foods are rich in iron such as spinach at 11.3 milligrams per 100 calories, beet greens at 11.2 milligrams, cucumber at 6.0 mg, brocolli at 3.1 mg, peas and green beans at 2.7, strawberries at 2.7, dried apricots at 2.7, lima and navy beans at 2.3 and a great many others. Compare that to Ceddar, bleu and mozarella cheeses at less than .01 mg, lean sirloin steak at 1.9 mg or lean ground beef at 1.1 milligrams per 100 calories.

 

[rebel_conservative]

I've been vegetarian for about 12 years.

and aside from Genesis, Daniel 1:8-16 also supports vegetarianism

8 But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. 9 Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel, 10 but the official told Daniel, "I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your [a] food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you."


11 Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, 12 "Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see." 14 So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. 15 At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. 16 So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.

 

[AlecEiffel]

I like meat too much.

 

[AlecEiffel]

Sorry guys

 

[Beastt]

I like meat too much.

In some parts of the world insects are considered a delicacy. Some other areas find cold snake blood to be a refreshing drink and I don't recall the exact location, but fried horse parasites are also on the list of things people like "too much" to give up.

Being raised within any culture makes it difficult to fully understand exactly how much of what we enjoy in our diets is a learned response and how much is simply personal preference. Those who have made what many might describe as "drastic" diet changes have experienced for themselves how tastes change. When I switched from vegetarian to vegan I wasn't sure I'd be able to give up cheese or ice cream. I liked both of them far too much to be able to envision not eating those things ever again. So I set out with the idea that this was my choice and, as such, I was free to change it back or "cheat" once in a while if I chose. After only 2 months, cheese no longer held the attraction it once had and anything containing milk didn't conjure images of an ice-cold, refreshing drink but of a slimy, pus-filled, bovine excretion which is now quite highly unappentizing for me.

A very close friend of mine decided to give up meat and asked for some advice. My advice was for them not to place themselves under a strict guideline. I told them that once in a while, if they wanted some meat, they should simply recognize that their diet was strictly their choice and to understand that if all they ended up doing was to reduce their intake of meat, they would still reap a significant health benefit. Two months after changing their diet they told me that just the thought of placing an animals flesh in their mouth was enough to prompt a gag reflex. After six months they decided to go vegan and they have never looked back. Even while their whole family continues to eat a more standard western diet, they're thrilled, not only with their diet choice, but with the increased energy and better overall feeling of health which has accompanied the change.

Giving up anything we've eaten from the time we were babies isn't likely to be a terribly encouraging thought. I suspect this is more prevalent in western cultures but people tend to feel they're being deprived if you even suggest to them that they give up something they've become accustom to eating. But actually making the change and doing it only for yourself often turns up some very unexpected results. It doesn't take long before that road-kill on the highway begins to look very much like the steak and ground beef behind the butcher's counter. And certainly it should since they are both the inside of an animal carcass. But to each their own. Enjoy the foods you eat without consideration for how those likes and dislikes might change or take the plunge knowing you can always turn back.

For me, I couldn't ever considered biting down on an animal's body and I very much like the idea of not having a "weak heart", arthritis, problems with weight and all of the other things so common to those who eat a common diet, rich in fat, hormones, antibiotics and cholesterol. When you consider the reduced chance of cancer, the almost eliminated chance of heart attack or stroke, unlikelihood of osteoporosis, diverticulitis, hemorrhoids, diabetes and dozens of other common problems, finding another way to eat doesn't sound so bad and it's always better than it sounds.

 

[rebel_conservative]

milk didn't conjure images of an ice-cold, refreshing drink but of a slimy, pus-filled, bovine excretion which is now quite highly unappentizing for me.

I guess "got slimy, pus-filled, bovine excretion?" didn't have the same marketing appeal...

 

[fallen^sparrow]

To think our children are being fed slimy pus filled homo sapien excretion ... somebody really should pass a law.

fallen^sparrow

ps: I would check the "best before date" on that milk carton.

 

[Beastt]

To think our children are being fed slimy pus filled homo sapien excretion ... somebody really should pass a law.

fallen^sparrow

ps: I would check the "best before date" on that milk carton.

Infants tend to do a lot of things and put a lot of things in their mouths that would cause most adults to gag. Human milk does happen to have a number of beneficial nutrients for infants. That's why an infant's digestive system produces plenty of lactase to break down the lactose sugar in the milk. But at about 18-months of age, humans either stop production of lactase or sharply reduce the amount produced. This coincides with a natural weaning time which every other animal, aside from man, observes. Indeed, in most parts of the world and among the vast majority of adults, milk causes flatulence, cramping, diarrhea and even bleeding within the small intestine as the digestive system isn't designed to process raw sugars. Being lactose tolerant past infancy isn't the norm, it's an anomaly when compared with world-wide populations. Perhaps the body is trying to tell us something.

Aside from that, the milk of a cow is designed for baby cows who require 15% protein, (as found in cow's milk), and will double their weight in only 47 days. Human breast milk, (which most adults avoid drinking), contains only 5% protein, (as required by infant humans), to accomodate a natural doubling of birth weight in about 180 days. Unfortunately, most people have been lead to believe that more protein is always better despite the diseases common to western cultures which have been tied to the over-consumption of protein. But things are even worse when you look at the fat content, which probably has a lot more to do with the rapid growth of baby cows. The stuff we refer to as "low-fat milk", commonly known as "2-percent", suggests only 2% fat content. But that's a bit misleading because it's measured by weight and most of the weight of milk comes from water. If measured by caloric content, that "low-fat" milk is actually 31% fat. If you look at "whole milk", which has also had the fat reduced and is commonly known as "4 percent', the actual fat content calorically is 49% -- almost half of the calories come from fat. A proper look at the fat content of "half & half" shows 79% of the calories coming from fat and when you churn the cream into butter, you're now dealing not only with 100% fat, but a saturated fat as well. Saturated fats are those grouped with cholesterol as primary to the development of atherosclerosis and the heart disease that goes with it.

As far as the pus in milk is concerned, the USDA allows up to 750 million pus cells per liter of milk. Fortunately, actual content is substantially below that figure but it has been rising since Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone was approved for use. It gained approval in February of 1994 when the average pus cell count in milk was under 300 million cells per liter. By 1996, that average count had reached 307 million. In 1997, the average count was 313 million, and by 1998, the number had reached 318 million.

But there is more to the story than just how much pus is in milk. The amount of pus is indicative of the health of the cow the milk comes from. A healthy cow produces milk with about 100 million pus cells per liter. Cattle suffering from infection will produce milk containing 200-million, 300-million or even 400-million pus cells per liter. Such milk is known as "abnormal milk" and also contains clots, flakes and marked discoloration. Of course filtration and homogenization removes the lumps and mixes the discolored milk into the regular milk, smoothing out the coloration. At any rate, it's clear that the milk purchased at the local grocery store comes from cattle suffering from udder infections and stress. That's really only the beginning of the story when it comes to milk but I didn't intend for this to become a debate on the relative merits of milk consumption. I won't even get into IGF-1, other than to say that it's closely linked to the development of cancer and is found in all cow's milk.

The point is more that the things you have developed a taste for might not be so pleasing to the taste or simulating to the appetite once it has been removed from the diet for a few months. We can learn to eat and like almost any edible matter but that doesn't mean that it's an appropriate or healthy food. Disliking the facts does nothing to change the facts.

 

[rebel_conservative]

well I still like milk... I will always be a veggie, I am not sure I could be vegan.

 

[Beastt]

well I still like milk... I will always be a veggie, I am not sure I could be vegan.

I'm not even sure you should try. I'm just saying that there was a time when I thought I would always remain a vegetarian and thought a vegan diet was simply crazy.

In researching the health effects of vegetarianism, I found that while it was obviously healthier than a meat-based diet, the evidence showed that a vegan diet was not only healtheir, but also presented less cruelty into the world. I turned my back on the information for a time but eventually I had to pick up the books again and keep reading. I never intended for the research to lead me to any diet change. I was quite happy as a vegetarian. But after a few months, I realized that I at least had to give it a try.

 

[rebel_conservative]

this is an argument the carnivores always use... but what would happen to the cows etc is we did not have milk? to the chickens if we didn't have the eggs? etc?

 

[Beastt]

this is an argument the carnivores always use... but what would happen to the cows etc is we did not have milk? to the chickens if we didn't have the eggs? etc?

Their numbers would slowly respond to the rules of supply and demand.

When you consider that there are about 1.6 billion cattle on the planet, that each one produces about 6 liters of methane daily and that methane is 21 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, reducing the number of cattle would be a very positive thing for the environment.

Add to that the loss of the rain forest which is primarily to create affordable pasture to raise cattle and you have an added benefit. Especially when the pasture land created becomes eroded wasteland about 3 years after the trees and other forest vegetation are cut and burned.