Do all vegans have deficiencies? vitamins and minerals

[remember]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Dalai Lama eats meat when he's traveling.

so you make the exception a rule? and use the dalai lama as spiritual reference to justify meat eating? how twisted is that?

maybe you could consider contemplating the difference between the rule and the exception...that’s one of my favorite lessons yet to come 

also if baking is in our dna...

some foods are better to be processed (peeled,cooked,baked) because of biochemical reasons, but we can also eat a lot of them as micro greens. or bake wholegrain at low temperature. (don’t have a raw diet - but i‘m sure it would be better - although there has to be something to work towards)

Edited January 22, 2020 by remember

[Esoteric]

2 hours ago, JalenS23 said:

Hmmm. I just feel like there’s still a difference between being able to adapt to withstand tough situations, like surviving in extremely cold environments and needing to eat meat purely for survival. Compared to living in an optimal environment that much better suits our needs. Sunlight, warm temperature, fresh water, fresh produce. Would you be physically comfortable living butt naked in a cold environment? Shouldn’t that say something? 
 

@JalenS23 Humans at harsh environments had to go beyond their capabilities and use their brains to the max to survive. Getting harshness thrown at you actually make you stronger and more capable if you endure it. Have you noticed that privileged kids who got everything served to them are not very pleasant to be around. Shouldn't that say something? 

[Hatfort]

It's true we adapt fast, in fact we do it while we are alive in some degree. But not so fast, If you take a black baby from Africa to live with a Inuit tribe, he is going to be fine, he will start wearing fur like the rest and eat the food available and survive in their culture and environment. Does it mean his ancestors and genes are adapted to wear fur and other variables in that climate? I don't think so. His skin will be darker for where they ancestors lived, not for himself, but he won't die for that. If you take an Inuit baby and bring it to an African tribe where they mostly eat plants, he is just going to dress like them and his skin is going to adapt while he is alive too, whatever his ancestors did for thousands of years. I don't want to separete humans using fire, weapons or shoes from the evolution, but there are still very intrinsic things in us that we haven't left behind. If we stop using footwear, our feet are going to be well. That would be for our digestive system too, we don't need meat, we are fine without it, but in some environments was all there was, we only needet it that context, not that we really do. We can survive very long and have children breathing the smoke of cars and other filth daily too, that doesn't make it ideal and maybe our bodies will start evolving to detoxify more efficiently in time, but I wouldn't wait for it.

In evolution, what mattered most was if we could surivive long enough to have children. So if we can live long enough for that with mostly fish and meat, like the Inuits, fine by evolution. It's still healthier for them to eat more plant based though, they will live longer. Same for mammoth eating Asians and Europeans, whatever they did in the Ice Age.

[JalenS23]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Dalai Lama eats meat when he's traveling.

@JalenS23 Again, you underestimate how well adapted humans are to their technology. Cooking food is baked into our DNA. It's not something we just do nowadays. We've been doing it since before we were even homo sapiens. Likewise for things like wearing furs. Your body is bald precisely because it adapted to wearing clothing.

Isn’t it fair to say that humans are probably the most dysfunctional species with unconsciousness and sickness running amuck. Yeah its something thats been done for thousands of years. I completley understand that. But I don’t think that in of itself means thats its most optimal. There had to have been a time before humans discovered fire where we had to eat raw foods. Maybe the introduction of cooking is what disconnected man from nature, pure love, pure consciousness and connection. (Not to demonize cooked food, thats not my point). Maybe applying fire to our food wasn’t the best application and that lead to us cooking foods that we aren’t biologically adapted to eat like animals, raw grains unless sprouted, etc. One of the most touted benefits i’ve seen claimed and have experienced myself by transitioning into a fully raw vegan diet, or at least very high raw, is more spiritual connection. When you lighten up your diet to just fruits and greens essentially with maybe small amounts of nuts and seeds. Your body is then able to detoxify at a much faster rate and you start to remove old stagnant waste that I believe is the link to dysfunctional behavior. You’re also now eating foods (raw foods) that are grown straight from sunlight and have the “life-force” energy. Energy that I believe can truly raise your level of consciousness when you eat those foods while at the exclusion of the offending foods. So maybe just in terms of a raw vegan diet being a tool for spiritual growth past whether it being whats natural or most optimal.  Maybe you can give it a 30-90 day trial experiment and see if the lifestyle has any weight (:

[pluto]

Survival/Adaptation is one thing.

To Thrive is completely different wavelength living.

 

[Leo Gura]

20 minutes ago, JalenS23 said:

Isn’t it fair to say that humans are probably the most dysfunctional species with unconsciousness and sickness running amuck

No, it's not fair to say because humans are much more complicated and conscious, with a higher challenge for conscious living.

[JalenS23]

21 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No, it's not fair to say because humans are much more complicated and conscious, with a higher challenge for conscious living.

I’m meaning more in terms of spiral development and dysfunctions within our psyche. Of course, I know so many factors play a role. But what if food is one of the biggest ones that have a direct impact on levels of consciousness and spiral development. Something that we can strive to improve the quality and quanity of over the years because it might be one of the most direct ways to improve society, our health, the environment, and raise the collective level of consciousness 

[Leo Gura]

@JalenS23 Obviously we should be improving the quality of our food. And that is already happening.

But it takes wealth and development to do that. In a world where many people are still starving, junk food is a step forward for them because it is cheap. They cannot afford better.

Concerns about organic and whole food doesn't emerge until stage Green. 80% of the world isn't there yet.

[JalenS23]

25 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@JalenS23 Obviously we should be improving the quality of our food. And that is already happening.

But it takes wealth and development to do that. In a world where many people are still starving, junk food is a step forward for them because it is cheap. They cannot afford better.

Concerns about organic and whole food doesn't emerge until stage Green. 80% of the world isn't there yet.

I totally agree. Thank you for this conversation Leo. I hope you enjoy your break away from taking videos. Looking forward to your return (:

[Scholar]

@Leo Gura

From what I understand Eskimo's are far from perfectly adpated to their environment, they are simply adapted to survive long enough to pass on their genes:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23489753

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12535749

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19800772

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20548980

https://www.onlinecjc.ca/article/S0828-282X(14)00237-2/abstract

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.1814937!/httpFile/file.pdf

 

I can't find the source but I'm remembering having heard the Eskimos health improved after adopting a standard american diet, which obviously is far from optimal for anyone.

 

Selective pressures do not necessarily manifest in perfect adaptibility. Especially with something like going from an omnivore to a carnivore, which takes a long time.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Scholar

[Cocolove]

Fuck this is so frustrating, I just wish I had the answer. I suppose I will have to research a lot, and most importantly experiment. Raw veganism sounds convincing to me, but it's not like I deeply understand it or have lots of direct experience yet. It's interesting that even on actualized.org there is nowhere near a clear agreement, some of us are just finding different conclusions.

One thing I do have in my direct experience is that when I eat animal products I feel gross, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Before I finally decided to try veganism, I had spent years eating mindfully, and gradually becoming disgusted with how meat & animal products make me feel, and how it tastes. Over the past few months it was so gross, I would just choke it down. When I eat fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and that kind of thing, I enjoy it so much and am filled with gratitude and love, not disgust. I eat a pretty high fat diet, lots of avocados, nuts, seeds, coconut, etc. But overall a lot of every macro nutrient. I feel good with this. I have heard arguments that the macronutrient ratios don't really matter, if you do it right. 80 10 10 can be good but so can 60 20 20 or high fat. Lastly, I notice that I enjoy raw foods more. I eat almost all raw during the day, and cooked food with dinner. This gives me a good contrast. Cooked food just makes me tired and feels harder to digest. I just had a smoothie with soaked peeled raw almonds, coconut, oranges, spinach, banana. I feel great and not tired. I also like hemp protein powder lol.

[Cocolove]

16 hours ago, JalenS23 said:

Fruit is really the main food that in its raw natural state is appealing to the senses, beautiful colors, aromas, tastes amazing on its own without seasonings or salt, we don’t need to cook or process it. We’re naturally attracted to it. When you see a cow, do you have any instinct to run up and take it down like a carnivore? To eat it raw with all of its blood and guts? 

!!!! What I was just thinking in my last post.

[Hatfort]

10 minutes ago, Cocolove said:

Fuck this is so frustrating, I just wish I had the answer. I suppose I will have to research a lot, and most importantly experiment. Raw veganism sounds convincing to me, but it's not like I deeply understand it or have lots of direct experience yet. It's interesting that even on actualized.org there is nowhere near a clear agreement, some of us are just finding different conclusions.

One thing I do have in my direct experience is that when I eat animal products I feel gross, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Before I finally decided to try veganism, I had spent years eating mindfully, and gradually becoming disgusted with how meat & animal products make me feel, and how it tastes. Over the past few months it was so gross, I would just choke it down. When I eat fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and that kind of thing, I enjoy it so much and am filled with gratitude and love, not disgust. I eat a pretty high fat diet, lots of avocados, nuts, seeds, coconut, etc. But overall a lot of every macro nutrient. I feel good with this. I have heard arguments that the macronutrient ratios don't really matter, if you do it right. 80 10 10 can be good but so can 60 20 20 or high fat. Lastly, I notice that I enjoy raw foods more. I eat almost all raw during the day, and cooked food with dinner. This gives me a good contrast. Cooked food just makes me tired and feels harder to digest. I just had a smoothie with soaked peeled raw almonds, coconut, oranges, spinach, banana. I feel great and not tired. I also like hemp protein powder lol.

Of course, do your research, the best is others have already done it and you can just check them. About plant based diets, you can check Michael Greger's work, he has a website with lots of articles and videos, nutritionfacts.org and an active YouTube channel with that name. If you are a reader, totally go for his book "How not to die". Mic the vegan is a popular YouTuber too, easy to follow, but he does back up what he says. You can check "What the health" and "Game changers" documentaries too. You can check and ask in vegan forums, like in Reddit. If you go and ask in good faith, people will answer you well, then you decide what you do. Won't tell you about ethical and environmental considerations, since you didn't ask, but they can be a good bonus too, even if your primary motivation is optimal nutrition and health.

 

[JalenS23]

17 hours ago, Esoteric said:

@JalenS23 Humans at harsh environments had to go beyond their capabilities and use their brains to the max to survive. Getting harshness thrown at you actually make you stronger and more capable if you endure it. Have you noticed that privileged kids who got everything served to them are not very pleasant to be around. Shouldn't that say something? 

True, I can see that. I really don’t know have the answer. It might just lead to us deciphering between thriving and surviving. What environment(s) do humans best thrive in with the most natural conditions maybe. Whats the most ethical and environmentally friendly ways to live, which diet(s) best suits human anatomy. The answer to those questions might be more simple than we think or more complex than we ever imagined. 

[JalenS23]

4 hours ago, Cocolove said:

Fuck this is so frustrating, I just wish I had the answer. I suppose I will have to research a lot, and most importantly experiment. Raw veganism sounds convincing to me, but it's not like I deeply understand it or have lots of direct experience yet. It's interesting that even on actualized.org there is nowhere near a clear agreement, some of us are just finding different conclusions.

One thing I do have in my direct experience is that when I eat animal products I feel gross, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Before I finally decided to try veganism, I had spent years eating mindfully, and gradually becoming disgusted with how meat & animal products make me feel, and how it tastes. Over the past few months it was so gross, I would just choke it down. When I eat fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and that kind of thing, I enjoy it so much and am filled with gratitude and love, not disgust. I eat a pretty high fat diet, lots of avocados, nuts, seeds, coconut, etc. But overall a lot of every macro nutrient. I feel good with this. I have heard arguments that the macronutrient ratios don't really matter, if you do it right. 80 10 10 can be good but so can 60 20 20 or high fat. Lastly, I notice that I enjoy raw foods more. I eat almost all raw during the day, and cooked food with dinner. This gives me a good contrast. Cooked food just makes me tired and feels harder to digest. I just had a smoothie with soaked peeled raw almonds, coconut, oranges, spinach, banana. I feel great and not tired. I also like hemp protein powder lol.

I totally feel that. All we can do is research and experiment for ourselves. I noticed those same contrasts between eating animal products, processed foods of course, and then going vegan, then the diffference between vegan processed foods and vegan whole foods, and then noticing the difference between getting a majority of my calories from cooked healthy whole foods and getting a majority of my calories from fresh raw foods. The difference going high raw as well as going periods of time eating fully raw had the biggest contrast for me hands down. Personally, the high fat raw doesn’t work for me. Too many nuts and seeds, avocados, overt fats seem to clog me up and slow me down. I really feel my best doing a more 801010 approach. Getting most of my calories from fruit and keeping it low fat. A book you might enjoy reading if you haven’t already is the 801010 diet by Douglas Graham. It basically lays the foundation for this way of eating and living. And thats great that you’re enjoying your smoothies (:

[Leo Gura]

11 hours ago, Scholar said:

having heard the Eskimos health improved after adopting a standard american diet

I doubt this claim.

Can't get much worse than SAD in my opinion.

[LfcCharlie4]

@Hatfort Well said. 

Veganism is so broad nowadays, when I first went vegan there was basically no fast food options but as more and more people go vegan, the corporations spotted an opportunity and over here, McDonald's, KFC, Subway etc etc all have dedicated vegan options that are being heavily promoted, of course for a treat they're okay, but it's almost becoming as easy to be an unhealthy vegan as it is meat-eater, so it's key to learn how to eat a Vegan diet based on Whole Foods that aligns with your goals. Personally 80-10-10 didn't work for me as I go to the gym and want to build muscle and don't need that many carbs to function in an office lol, so it's about finding what Vegan diet works for you and your goals. 

I'd also recommend Intermittent Fasting.

[Scholar]

11 hours ago, Cocolove said:

Fuck this is so frustrating, I just wish I had the answer. I suppose I will have to research a lot, and most importantly experiment. Raw veganism sounds convincing to me, but it's not like I deeply understand it or have lots of direct experience yet. It's interesting that even on actualized.org there is nowhere near a clear agreement, some of us are just finding different conclusions.

One thing I do have in my direct experience is that when I eat animal products I feel gross, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Before I finally decided to try veganism, I had spent years eating mindfully, and gradually becoming disgusted with how meat & animal products make me feel, and how it tastes. Over the past few months it was so gross, I would just choke it down. When I eat fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and that kind of thing, I enjoy it so much and am filled with gratitude and love, not disgust. I eat a pretty high fat diet, lots of avocados, nuts, seeds, coconut, etc. But overall a lot of every macro nutrient. I feel good with this. I have heard arguments that the macronutrient ratios don't really matter, if you do it right. 80 10 10 can be good but so can 60 20 20 or high fat. Lastly, I notice that I enjoy raw foods more. I eat almost all raw during the day, and cooked food with dinner. This gives me a good contrast. Cooked food just makes me tired and feels harder to digest. I just had a smoothie with soaked peeled raw almonds, coconut, oranges, spinach, banana. I feel great and not tired. I also like hemp protein powder lol.

Do some research on ayurveda, it's not necessarily an accurate model, although it seems to work in practice from what I hear, but the general principles imply something that completely lacks in our western understanding of what diets and even lifestyles are healthy for us.

There could be a relationship between our general constitutions, our minds, our gut-biome and so forth that makes specific approaches for specific people more approriate than for others.

For example, if I test myself on Ayurvedic principles, I seem to be a Vata Dosha. I have a slender build, very dry skin, tooth irregularities, very good at jogging and similar light-intensity activities. My mind is very restless, I get interested in different things very quickly and lose interest very quickly. I learn quickly and forget quickly. I have difficulty sleeping and I am easily fatigued.

Vata Dosha is Cold and Dry, this means, from an Ayurvedic perspective, I should eat warm and moist food. I should eat nourishing foods and eat them regularily. I should therefore avoid fasting and avoid eating too much raw vegetables. I need consistency in my daily morning routine to reduce my tendency to be all over the place and lose focus. I need lots of rest and sleep.

There is even specific foods which are deemed good and bad for the Vata Dosha and can bring one out of balance depending if one has too much of it or too little.

 

Now, a lot of things I listed, from a western perspective, would simply assume to be somehow unhealthy:

You have dry skin and are skinny? Probably something to do with bad health.

You have tooth irregularities? Must be bad genes!

Your mind is restless and you lose interest in things quickly? You are undisciplined and childish!

 

This kind of thinking leads us to attempt to fix all of these things.

"I have to get bigger, I need more protein and lift more weights!"

"I have dry skin, this means something must be deeply wrong with my health!"

"I lose focus quickly and can't motivate myself to stick to one activity for more than two weeks, this means I need to become more disciplined!"

 

Ayurveda however states that these Dosha's, there constitutions of mind and body, are inherent to us. If we for example listen to someone who is naturally rather disciplined, who has smooth and oily skin and so forth and listen to their advice we will do the opposite to helping ourselves. We will apply what works for other Dosha's and apply it to ourselves.

A Vata for example, to be productive, needs lot's of variety and lot's of different activities throughout the day. If you for example would attempt to "discipline" yourself to sit around all day long and study one specific subject in one specific way because you think that's what you need to do, you will find yourself getting burned our in a short timeframe. You will be far less productive in total than if you had constructed your life to fit your natural tendencies, of for example getting super inspired to do a specific thing and doing it very intensely for a very short period of time.

 

This is very interesting because even self-help books do not consider this. They treat as if there was one method of approaching mastery, or learning in general, for all people. "If you just get yourself to be like me, you will have success!"

This is ignorant of the inherent differences between different types of people. A Vata cannot have the same approach to learning as a Kapha has, but the Kapha might be the one who has the greater tendency to master a specific subfield and then write about how he mastered it. Of course he mastered it, because his Dosha is perfect for mastering something with that specific approach! And it will work perfectly well for all who have the same Dosha. But for those who do not, and aren't even aware of it, will fail and then ask themselves what the hell is wrong with them. They might conclude that whatever they are trying to do is not for them, because they do not enjoy it at all. Of course they don't, because the approach it in a way that goes against their nature.

 

The same applies to the diet and it probably extends to all other areas of life, including things like relationships and spirituality.

 

Ayurveda might not be entirely accurate and certainly incomplete, but we must take the principles and apply them to our own approach to how we understand health, learning and so forth. I predict that this will be one of the most ignorant seeming areas that people will look back at in the future.

 

Vata will not sit around on a cushion and meditate peacefully, every single day, in the same way. I tried it, it simply does not work. I need variety in the approach. Sure I will not get as deep, but I won't anyways, because my mind gets utterly disgusted when it needs to do the same meditation technique every single day for a month. By the time two weeks have passed my mind will refuse to do the meditation to such a degree that it will forget how I was even doing it in the first place. It will literally erase progess I made just so I go and do something else.

I was fighting this tendency a long time, and when I started to give in to my tendencies, in a healthy way, I found it to be far more enjoyable and therefore find myself to continue doing practices far more effectively.

I have to accept that I might never reach the same level of depth as a Kapha might reach. I get breakthroughts with new methods in a very small amount of time, I can learn a new technique in a single day. But I can't quite get as deep as a slower, more patient learner does. I will also tend to forget it far more quickly. This is just how it is.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Scholar

[herghly]

@LfcCharlie4 What's your thoughts on Layne Norton's videos debunking Game Changers - 

He also has a video about the debate on JRE 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkaDNfZ4hrg&t=168s

[Hatfort]

@LfcCharlie4

Yeah, it's easier now. I'm surprised how many options there are available. Even in Africa, where I've been living for a few months, I did fine.

I also want to add something, three years ago I went vegetarian for various months, it was solely for economic reasons. I was jobless then, had some savings but had to spend more carefully. I took from my diet the most expensive thing, meat. People say vegan is expensive, they have not really been poor, they couldn't afford meat.

I saw the Joe Rogan debate between the guy that debunked "Game changers" and its director. He totally crushed him, don't miss it. I'm just going to highlight one point from that. There is a part where they are discussing about some studies that relate milk consumption with prostate cancer. Even Rogan shows a bit of concern about that and he is clearly sided against veganism. Some of them are even from the dairy industry and they show the same tendencies, of course, all that is kept from the public as much as possible, I've been drinking big amounts of milk all my life, thinking it was healthy and good for my bones. Well, my bones are as fine without it and places where they don't consume it at all, the fracture rates are lower. I repeat, lower. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what the food industry is holding. They want to make business and they are lying.

Maybe I'm wrong and they are genuinly concerned about the deficiencies vegans may have. But considering the rates of nutritional disfunctions like morbid obesity in omnivores are clearly higher, how is it that they don't start from there?

Edited January 23, 2020 by Hatfort