Forums >Health and Nutrition>These vegans are scaring me...
Michelle
Good Bad & The Monkey
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
Perhaps. But how do we judge. Is the "organic" strawberry sold in December at Whole Foods (kept cool using petroleum-fueld refridgeration, flown in at great airplane fule petroleum costs from Brazil, packaged in plastic) or the "organic, free range" chicken from Wild Oats (raised in a 2-acre shed full of genetically identical chickens, with a door to the outside opened for the first time 5 weeks into their 7 week life, living under such austere unnatural sterile conditions so as to eliminate the risk of illness which would wipe out the flock overnight) better for being organic and free range than the beef fed corn and antibiotics in a concentrated animal feeding operation, but at a lower environmental cost in terms of petroleum use? What about, as Pollan points out, the out of season Sourth American organic asparagus that contain about 50 calories, but require 500 calories in airline fuel energy to get them to your plate? Not everybody can access pasture-fed beef or biodynamic vegetables. And even with access, it takes time and energy to prepare them for eating. It is terribly hard to eat seasonally and locally. Relying on simple labels, such as "organic" and "free range" may be deceiving. How to judge?
To paraphrase an old poster: Today is the first day of the rest of your training. It doesn’t matter where you started or how far you’ve come. Today is the day. Your training didn’t start 6 weeks ago. Your training started the last time you hit the road. John “the Penguin” Bingham Life is not tried, it is merely survived if you're standing outside the fire
Sure. But while you're considering it, actually consider it. As in, what it actually says, and the actual facts, as opposed to what your first link up there claims the research says. I followed the links and did my own considering: Worst case: a 24.3% lower sperm count in your sons. Maybe. If you absolutely gorge yourself on beef, while you’re pregnant. Maybe. But this "study" (cough) is based solely on self-reporting; not a shred of medical data. Just an apparent correlation between self-reported dietary habits and lowered sperm counts in sons, without any attempt to 1) verify the self-reporting, or 2) actually consider the billion other possible variables. And then it gets funnier: this correlation - assuming the self-reporting is somewhere close to accurate - only appears among women who eat beef SEVEN or more times a week. If you're eating beef SEVEN frickin' times a week, you've got more to worry about than your son's sperm. Like needing a root canal in your colon. Also - none of the big beefy sons of beef-loving cow-hating moms were infertile, by the way. Not one. Just the opposite. They'd all gotten their mates pregnant. Ironic, isn't it? Which could suggest an alternate conclusion: eat lots of beef while you’re pregnant, and your son is going to be quite the stud (literally) – even with less sperm! Nice. More efficient sperm! Where's that cheeseburger? Wait - it gets even better. Remember that "self reporting" bit? Any study based solely on self-reporting is potentially fatally flawed, of course - but this wasn't even that accurate. Know how they actually got their data? You ain't gonna believe this silliness: "For this study, the first to look at beef consumption and semen quality, researchers analyzed semen samples and questionnaires from 387 male partners of pregnant women. The men, born between 1949 and 1983, had reported (with the mothers' input, if possible) on their own mothers' diet during pregnancy." You read that right. The whole study is based on asking men what their mothers ate, when they were pregnant. With the men in question. Decades ago. "With the mothers' input, if possible." Jesus wept. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, and you’re asking me what my mother ate for lunch on a Tuesday in April of 1969? And basing your “study” on my answers? Awesome. Good times. For the record, I do remember my Mom stuffing her face with some bad burritos right about the time Golda Meir became Prime Minister of Israel (it was a slow news day, if I remember right), and it frankly didn’t agree with me. But they were chicken burritos, so that’s probably covered in another study. Okay, so once you're through laughing (or crying) about where they got their “data,” make sure you consider the "researchers" own comments, too. Their advice is good, and goes a little beyond “beef = no sperm = bad!”: ----------------------------------------------------------------- Last thing you should do, while you're considering the above: find out who financed this "research." I'll bet a Quarter Pounder w/Cheese that the answer to that particular question would be ... interesting. I love this thread. Not only did I learn that running will kill me any day now, I've also discovered that I'm an unethical, intolerant, unhealthy, mindless killing machine burdened by slow decomposing waste and weak, flabby sperm. Awesome. Where's that boar I gotta kill?
Amish is just one form of farming, often (but not always) biodynamic. But you can do something. You can buy local biodynamic veggies, grass-fed meats, pastured eggs, etc.
10 acres? How big is the garden? Could you graze a few head of cattle and some broiler chickens and egg layers?
E-mail: eric.fuller.mail@gmail.com -----------------------------
How about some wild boar? I hear that's good eatin' right there.
Why is it sideways?
Now that was a bath...
Yeah, but it ain't kosher. That's the rub.
Prophet!