Explain to me like I am 5: How is coffee bad for you?

[Michael569]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

Saladino makes a pretty compelling case for his diet.

it pays his bills to say the things he does, what do you expect  

 Look, I get his arguments on processed junk, and toxins in the environment as well as the general decline in physical activity and rise of obesity in people. All of that is very concerning but once he starts saying that fibre is actually harmful and that low fibre diets cure constipation because one study said so and that all of problems are caused by "toxic plants" and toxic seed oils and we all need to step worrying about our cholesterol levels, he is spitting in the face of everything we've known and walking very thin ice because he could literally be (indirectly) killing people with that sort of advice. 

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

the importance of evolutionary adaptation. 

Can you unpack what you mean by this for me? 

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

We didn't evolve in a vacuum. The largest chunk of our phylogenetic development has been spent in some kind of hunter gatherer/foraging situation, so that should absolutely be at the core of how we think about diet.

this is mostly irrelevant. We are not our ancestors anymore. We don't hunt animals nor live in caves. Society has moved on. There is a reason we started farming because it helped us to move societies forward. I don't see any need to keep appealing to hunter gatherer tribal life anymore. 

I'd urge you to pay visit to Thailand and visit the Lahu villages in North West region of Pang Mapha at the edge of Burmese mountains. These people die of tuberculosis, opium overdose, malnutrition and infectious diseases. They eat bugs, bats, dogs, rats, cats they shoot on the moon during eclipse and they kill poorly developed children in the belief that they are cursed.  Lahu also mostly rely on rice and vegetables, eating meat rarely when they can actually kill a wild boar or deer. When they eat red meat, it is in small amounts, from wild animal, not fat locally farmed cow and probably less than 150 grams per week, not 1 pound a week. Or at least they did 20 years ago before the modernisation of the country, nowadays they own cell phones and motorbikes and eat fried wings when they can.

Lahu people are what you would call descendants of tribal cultures in southeast Asia. Would you say they somehow have a manual for health? In my opinion they lived purely survival-based lifestyles and their life improved with the advancement of technology, medicine and more dietary variety. Same for many other once tribal societies.

These people (including tribes in south America and other regions of south east Asia) are stage purple groups and the idea that we should follow their lead is a bit naive. 

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

We acknowledge these realities in almost every aspect of what it means to be human (sex, violence, socialization, art, language), but somehow when it comes to diet, we think we are above this.

I'm gonna need you to unpack this for me as well if you don't mind. 

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

For what it's worth: Im on his diet for a month now and I feel absolutely fantastic.

you are a young man in your prime years. It is to be expected. You should be at your peak strength and mental performance. Eating a lot of red meat is going to make you stronger in this age but probably introduce detriment later on. It is up to you to decide whether you want to play that roulette. 

Also one month is not long enough to see any detriment, you could be eating kiwi only diet and feel fine after a month 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Michael569

[LfcCharlie4]

@Nilsi  This is the most common thing I've seen with carnivore / high red meat diets. You are literally removing any food you had sensitivities with & temporarily starving the body of them. But, long term fucking up your heart & digestion, not to mention increasing the risk of basically every chronic disease out there

Feeling amazing for short period > decades of research on what people who actually lived to 100 do.

I just don't understand this thinking. 

I'm not saying small amounts of animal products can't be healthy, they defo can. But, one thing the majority of the nutrition world agree on except this corner is that lots of red meat will lead to increased risk of heart issues. Not even just read meat but Sat Fat from foods like Coconut oil which was hounded as a superfood for a while. 

Also, why does it have to be one or the other, why can't it be a balance of all Macros / Micros slightly adjusted for individual goals. 

I think one of the biggest issues with Socials is people like Liver King who jack themselves up with $15k+/ monthly PEDs then spend millions on one of the greatest Social Media Marketing campaigns are what people are easily influenced by. 

The guys actually going by the data and who look 'normal' will never garner that attention, sure its partly their fault for marketing poorly, but algorithms push what gets clicks, and that's extreme content. 

It was similar in 2014-2017 when the extreme raw vegans were getting the attention with the whole HCLF push that caused a shit tonne of problems.

[Nilsi]

2 hours ago, Michael569 said:

it pays his bills to say the things he does, what do you expect  

 Look, I get his arguments on processed junk, and toxins in the environment as well as the general decline in physical activity and rise of obesity in people. All of that is very concerning but once he starts saying that fibre is actually harmful and that low fibre diets cure constipation because one study said so and that all of problems are caused by "toxic plants" and toxic seed oils and we all need to step worrying about our cholesterol levels, he is spitting in the face of everything we've known and walking very thin ice because he could literally be (indirectly) killing people with that sort of advice. 

Can you unpack what you mean by this for me? 

this is mostly irrelevant. We are not our ancestors anymore. We don't hunt animals nor live in caves. Society has moved on. There is a reason we started farming because it helped us to move societies forward. I don't see any need to keep appealing to hunter gatherer tribal life anymore. 

I'd urge you to pay visit to Thailand and visit the Lahu villages in North West region of Pang Mapha at the edge of Burmese mountains. These people die of tuberculosis, opium overdose, malnutrition and infectious diseases. They eat bugs, bats, dogs, rats, cats they shoot on the moon during eclipse and they kill poorly developed children in the belief that they are cursed.  Lahu also mostly rely on rice and vegetables, eating meat rarely when they can actually kill a wild boar or deer. When they eat red meat, it is in small amounts, from wild animal, not fat locally farmed cow and probably less than 150 grams per week, not 1 pound a week. Or at least they did 20 years ago before the modernisation of the country, nowadays they own cell phones and motorbikes and eat fried wings when they can.

Lahu people are what you would call descendants of tribal cultures in southeast Asia. Would you say they somehow have a manual for health? In my opinion they lived purely survival-based lifestyles and their life improved with the advancement of technology, medicine and more dietary variety. Same for many other once tribal societies.

These people (including tribes in south America and other regions of south east Asia) are stage purple groups and the idea that we should follow their lead is a bit naive. 

I'm gonna need you to unpack this for me as well if you don't mind. 

you are a young man in your prime years. It is to be expected. You should be at your peak strength and mental performance. Eating a lot of red meat is going to make you stronger in this age but probably introduce detriment later on. It is up to you to decide whether you want to play that roulette. 

Also one month is not long enough to see any detriment, you could be eating kiwi only diet and feel fine after a month 

For example: One successful genetic adaptation might be "perceiving childlike features as attractive;"

• This is adaptive, because males who possess this trait will take more care of their children, which in turn makes those children more likely to survive and thus reproduce, spreading the gene that codes for "perceiving childlike features as attractive."
• This is in fact why you find young-looking women so attractive (because the specificity of this trait is low enough to where it is also triggered by adults with childlike features)

Now, this kind of logic is how evolution works in every dimension.

Also important: We have spent most of our evolutionary past (roughly 2.000.000 years) in foraging (hunter gatherer) societies and not in agrarian ones (which only emerged roughly 10.000 years ago), so this is where most of the adaptation took place.

• So, a gene that codes for something like "more optimal digestability of red meat" or "more optimal nutrient absorption of fruits," would have brought about an evolutionary advantage and thus been selected for over the generations.
• A gene coding for "more optimal energy utilization of grain," would have brought no advantage and would thus not have spread as rapidly as the former two, if at all.

So: Our organism (which is the product of an evolutionary process) has been optimized under conditions in which we were mainly consuming meats, fruits and wild plants (Im not sure what to make of Saladinos comments on plants - it sounds plausible, but I have not seen good evidence for it; thats why I supplement my diet with AG1), which is why it is optimized to process those foods and not others (like bread or pasta or oats or whatever).

Just for the sake of it: My diet consists of ground beef, eggs, fruits, honey and coconut oil. I drink coffee and water (and the occasional beer, or 2, or 3, or 4 - but thats besides the point). I supplement with AG1, Creatine, D3/K2, Omega-3 and Magnesium Glycinate.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Nilsi

[Michael569]

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

We have spent most of our evolutionary past (roughly 2.000.000 years) in foraging (hunter gatherer) societies and not in agrarian ones (which only emerged roughly 10.000 years ago), so this is where most of the adaptation took place.

adaptations for reproductive survival, yes but not post-reproductive survival. 

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

So, a gene that codes for something like "more optimal digestability of red meat" or "more optimal nutrient absorption of fruits," would have brought about an evolutionary advantage and thus been selected for over the generations.

Yes, but only for reproductive fitness. 

Are you familiar with the theory of antagonistic pleiotropy? What it hypothesised is that when genetic adaptation happens, that improves the odds of reproductive fitness and production of offspring, that adaptation leads to detriment later in life. This is part of Darwinism and evolutionary biology. 

So for example, in men who have high levels of testosterone in youth, reproductive fitness is increased due to increased muscularity, increased libido, increased sperm motility, often longer penis etc all of which improve their odds of producing offspring. But men with high levels of testosterone are also at increased risk of prostate cancer later in life (antagonistically pleiotropic adaptation causing exchange of favourable and less favourable genetic traits) https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/88/16/1118/886395?login=true

Another example: Women with higher levels of oestrogens throughout life are more likely to be more fertile, have higher ovarian reserve, better blood supply to the uterus and are less likely to miscarry. They are also more likely to have more prominent sexual characteristics (hips, breasts,) which makes them more attractive to males and more likely to deliver living offspring (wider pelvis allows for larger separation of the pelvic cavity and undisturbed passing of the newborn...but....women with higher oestrogens are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer and ovarian cancer in their lifetime and might be more likely to reach earlier menopause (antagonistic pleiotropy) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC314432/

Final example: male babies who consume more dairy products tend to grow well and have fewer developmental problems and lower incidence of rickets and yet in later adolescence higher consumption od dairy, especially higher fat dairy has been associated with higher risk of prostate cancer in men. (antagonistically pleiotropic genetic adaptation) 

Who's to say that this does not happen with food everywhere? 

If we are genetically adapted to a particular food (e.g. meat and dairy) it perpetuates early life survival, reduces risk of death early in life and causes increased odds of survival success between the age of 12-35 but then as more and more genetic adaptations are added up, antagonistic pleiotropy kicks in and you start paying for it in the later part of life by having higher risk of chronic disease although maybe at the same time you are sacrificing some horniness and a few plates on your benchpress. 

You gotta ask, what is worth it and what itsn't? This is basically a common wear & tear of the organism and telomere shortening. We all have finite amount of energy and the more you deeply your energetic currency in one way, the more you lose in another. 

This might explain higher cardiovascular incidence in red meat consumers despite anecdotal evidence that it makes you stronger, leaner and hornier. Diet that we are highly adapted to might be causing a reduction in longevity and increased risk of chronic disease in exchange for increasing your attractiveness, strength and odds of being on the top of the male hierarchy. 

 What if being actually a little bit weaker, little bit less muscular a little bit less sexually driven and eating a less genetically adapted diet (e.g. high plant diet) prevents from stacking up antagonistically pleiotropic genes and hence prolongs longevity? And if we look at nutritional epidemiology, then higher fibre diets (grains, legumes) tend to lead to reduced risk and reduced rate of major chronic diseases (obesity, cancer, type 2 diabetes) 

Also, if you look at it from another perspective, it is likely that the fact that plants have poorer digestibility and bioavailability might be one of the reasons why they lead to a reduction in things like colorectal cancer due to fibre leftovers and lower caloric intake overall. Higher plant eaters tend to be leaner, lighter and have healthier lipid panels compared to their counterparts who eat higher diet in saturated fats. Yes, they have higher rates of bone breaks but weight-bearing exercise can fix that. 

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

or the sake of it: My diet consists of ground beef, eggs, fruits, honey and coconut oil. I drink coffee and water (and the occasional beer, or 2, or 3, or 4 - but thats besides the point). I supplement with AG1, Creatine, D3/K2, Omega-3 and Magnesium Glycinate.

whatever rocks your boat  

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Im not sure what to make of Saladinos comments on plants - it sounds plausible, but I have not seen good evidence for it;

I have reviewed a chunk of the antinutrient evidence and let me tell you there isn't anything there that infers any harm to humans, in fact it appears that antinutrients might actually be beneficial to us.

For example: 

• Lectins and phytates appear to reduce the risk of cancer for example but the research is , so far, of low quality. 
• Oxalates are not problematic in healthy individuals with healthy kidneys and healthy microbiome balance. There is a genus called oxalobacter formigenes commonly found in people who have not been exposed to high amounts of antibiotics and these people have lower incidence of oxalic stones in kidneys. 
• Goitrogens have only been shown to show some weird effects in rats, and foods that contain them (such as brassica vegetables and beet roots) are associated with reduced all-cause mortality and hormone-driven cancers. Of course, don't eat raw legumes and don't go chugging a pound of spinach per day if you have kidney disease.
• Lignans in flax seeds seems to be beneficial for prostate health in men and breast health in women but the research quality is poor here. 

The thing is many of these arguments in books like Plant Paradox and Carnivore Code are nice and persuasive when you listen to them the first time. They sound cool, modern and they speak the language of young men who are trying to find their identity and have problem embracing their feminine side. I speak from personal experience, in my early 20s I suffered from macho complex and carnivore diet would have been very attractive to me. 

But once you start digging yourself then you realise a lot of carnivore "experts" are absolute quacks. You start pulling apart the studies in these books one by one and you see they are full of shit. Misrepresent the evidence, cherry-pick studies, misinterpret findings, being unable to interpret forest plots and confidence intervals, not understanding statistics, exaggerating findings and omitting what doesn't suit the audience. 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Michael569

[Nilsi]

2 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

adaptations for reproductive survival, yes but not post-reproductive survival. 

Yes, but only for reproductive fitness. 

Are you familiar with the theory of antagonistic pleiotropy? What it hypothesised is that when genetic adaptation happens, that improves the odds of reproductive fitness and production of offspring, that adaptation leads to detriment later in life. This is part of Darwinism and evolutionary biology. 

So for example, in men who have high levels of testosterone in youth, reproductive fitness is increased due to increased muscularity, increased libido, increased sperm motility, often longer penis etc all of which improve their odds of producing offspring. But men with high levels of testosterone are also at increased risk of prostate cancer later in life (antagonistically pleiotropic adaptation causing exchange of favourable and less favourable genetic traits) https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/88/16/1118/886395?login=true

Another example: Women with higher levels of oestrogens throughout life are more likely to be more fertile, have higher ovarian reserve, better blood supply to the uterus and are less likely to miscarry. They are also more likely to have more prominent sexual characteristics (hips, breasts,) which makes them more attractive to males and more likely to deliver living offspring (wider pelvis allows for larger separation of the pelvic cavity and undisturbed passing of the newborn...but....women with higher oestrogens are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer and ovarian cancer in their lifetime and might be more likely to reach earlier menopause (antagonistic pleiotropy) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC314432/

Final example: male babies who consume more dairy products tend to grow well and have fewer developmental problems and lower incidence of rickets and yet in later adolescence higher consumption od dairy, especially higher fat dairy has been associated with higher risk of prostate cancer in men. (antagonistically pleiotropic genetic adaptation) 

Who's to say that this does not happen with food everywhere? 

If we are genetically adapted to a particular food (e.g. meat and dairy) it perpetuates early life survival, reduces risk of death early in life and causes increased odds of survival success between the age of 12-35 but then as more and more genetic adaptations are added up, antagonistic pleiotropy kicks in and you start paying for it in the later part of life by having higher risk of chronic disease

This might explain higher cardiovascular incidence in red meat consumers despite anecdotal evidence that it makes you stronger and hornier. Diet that we are highly adapted to might be causing a reduction in longevity and increased risk of chronic disease in exchange for increasing your attractiveness, strength and odds of being on the top of the male hierarchy. 

 What if being actually a little bit weaker, a little bit less sexually driven and eating a less genetically adapted diet (e.g. high plant diet) prevents from stacking up antagonistically pleiotropic genes and hence prolongs longevity? And if we look at nutritional epidemiology, then higher fibre diets (grains, legumes) tend to lead to reduced risk and reduced rate of major chronic diseases (obesity, cancer, type 2 diabetes) 

Also, if you look at it from another perspective, it is likely that the fact that plants have poorer digestibility and bioavailability might be one of the reasons why they lead to reduction in things like colorectal cancer due to fibre leftovers and lower caloric intake overall. Higher plant eaters tend to be leaner, lighter and have healthier lipid panel compared to their counterparts who eat higher diet in saturated fats. 

whatever rocks your boat  

I have reviewed a chunk of the antinutrient evidence and let me tell you there isn't anything there that infers any harm to humans, in fact it appears that antinutrients might actually be beneficial to us. Lectins and phytates appear to reduce the risk of cancer for example. Oxalates are not problematic in healthy individuals with healthy kidneys and healthy microbiome balance.  Goitrogens have only been shown to show some weird effects in rats and foods that contain them (such as brassica vegetables) are associated with reduced all cause mortality and cancer risk reduction. Of course don't eat raw legumes and don't go chugging a pound of spinach if you have kidney disease. 

The thing is many of these arguments are nice and persuasive when you listen to them until you start digging yourself then you realise a lot of carnivore "experts" are absolute quacks. 

Thats all good.

So, it is either a choice (short term advantage + long term detriment OR long term advantage + short term detriment) OR there is actually some kind of transcendent diet that optimizes across lifespan (which is probably what we should be looking for).

These long term detrimental genes have only survived, because these humans had their offspring before the point at which they became a liability.

I guess all roads lead to eugenics. CRISPR will allow us to clean up these "bad genes" and remove the downside from the "advantage now" diet (not to mention, that we can genetically optimize our food to our unique genetic makeup). How long before this will be available? I dont know.

[Michael569]

4 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

not to mention, that we can genetically optimize our food to our unique genetic makeup

yes, I also think this is the future along with genetic medicine.

[RendHeaven]

7 hours ago, Nilsi said:

For what it's worth: Im on his diet for a month now and I feel absolutely fantastic. 

@Nilsi I've eaten ONLY salted ground beef, eggs, white rice, and a small sprinkle of fruit (+calcium supplementation) for roughly 5 months straight. Strict, no exceptions, no cheating.

I have personally accrued a slew of unbelievable, paradigm-shattering benefits in that time which I simply cannot chalk up to placebo or confounding factors. My new way of eating made me better, period.

It gets tricky when the discussion becomes about how other humans ought to eat. I am not so confident yet telling everyone to eat like me (and so for the most part I refrain) - but I will not stand by idly when others tell me that beef is "unhealthy"!

@Michael569 Thanks for the response brother you've given me a lot to work with, I'll get back to you in a bit! 

[undeather]

19 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Thats all good.

So, it is either a choice (short term advantage + long term detriment OR long term advantage + short term detriment) OR there is actually some kind of transcendent diet that optimizes across lifespan (which is probably what we should be looking for).

These long term detrimental genes have only survived, because these humans had their offspring before the point at which they became a liability.

I guess all roads lead to eugenics. CRISPR will allow us to clean up these "bad genes" and remove the downside from the "advantage now" diet (not to mention, that we can genetically optimize our food to our unique genetic makeup). How long before this will be available? I dont know.

Please dont forget that diet is just ONE part of the antagonistic pleiotropy playbook.
Complex systems are in general not bound by zero-sum games - therefore any kind of binary thinking is inappropriate.
You can definitely optimize for multiple domains through a variety of influences (supplementation, movement, psychospiritual exercises...)

However if you want to talk long term advantage through the domain of nutriton, its actually pretty simple: Keep your ApoB and glucose as low as possible for as long as possible. In general, ApoB is more important for atherogenesis. 

And yes, its actually pretty easy to genetically influence those genotypes: Just knock out the 2 genes at Y142X and C679X and you basically become immune to heart attacks and strokes.
 

Quote

It gets tricky when the discussion becomes about how other humans ought to eat. I am not so confident yet telling everyone to eat like me (and so for the most part I refrain) - but I will not stand by idly when others tell me that beef is "unhealthy"! 

I think it's important to say that when we say "unhealthy" it's usually in relation to another food.
A grass fed steak is healthier than a frozen pizza.
A quinoa salad with a variety of homegrown vegetables is healthier than a steak. 

I wont deny though that a lot of guys feel amazing on meat based diets. If it rocks the boat for you, then go for it - it might not be the healthiest for longevity issues, but you will be fine for a very long time. 

 

[vladorion]

I'm not on a carnivore diet because I find it hard to eat so much meat but you can't deny that people on a raw carnivore diet look incredibly healthy.

[UnbornTao]

44 minutes ago, vladorion said:

I'm not on a carnivore diet because I find it hard to eat so much meat but you can't deny that people on a raw carnivore diet look incredibly healthy.

Lwt's see in 20-30 years

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, vladorion said:

I'm not on a carnivore diet because I find it hard to eat so much meat but you can't deny that people on a raw carnivore diet look incredibly healthy.

Like Liver King?

$10k/mo in steroids.

These fitness gurus are such scammers.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Roy]

4 hours ago, vladorion said:

I'm not on a carnivore diet because I find it hard to eat so much meat but you can't deny that people on a raw carnivore diet look incredibly healthy.

Not only is it disgusting to eat that much meat, it's an insult to any ethical standards or sustainability. Think about the plethora of animals that have to die weekly just to keep a single stupid human alive.

How people get attracted and tricked into such insane eating habits is beyond me. You can think of any category of food ever and there is some mouth breather somewhere who is preaching it as gospel. There was some dude on here months ago claiming eating pure fruit is the way to go. lol sorry man but if I'm gonna be a firefighter carrying heavy shit constantly I need a bit better fuel than ****** oranges and pineapple.

From what I've seen what you eat doesn't really need to be hyper specific. As long as it's balanced and you are exercising and get your blood moving, your body will start to take a better shape. This isn't a pass to not care about what you consume, obviously. In the end though if you want a 6 pack you need to hit the gym, period.

Unless you get a 6 pack of beer of course 

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Roy

[vladorion]

51 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Like Liver King?

$10k/mo in steroids.

These fitness gurus are such scammers.

I've never watched him but just took a look. He looks kinda gross.  

Like Goatis.

Edited December 15, 2022 by vladorion

[vladorion]

3 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Lwt's see in 20-30 years

Fair point. I haven't seen any people who've been on the for this long.

[RendHeaven]

16 hours ago, undeather said:

A quinoa salad with a variety of homegrown vegetables is healthier than a steak. 

No, this is exactly what I mean. I do not agree with this statement, in fact I stand in stark opposition to it

In my current view, organic 100% grass-fed cow flesh is THE HEALTHIEST food (AT LEAST for me), period.

Nothing comes close to it - certainly not grains or plants lol!

[Leo Gura]

My brain operates best on carnivore, but cholesotrol numbers get real bad.

Also, it's impossible to get fat on carnivore.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Leo Gura

[eos_nyxia]

On 12/12/2022 at 3:10 AM, Snader said:

Teachers, specifically spiritual teachers are biased in that way that they will guide you away from caffeine, because it's clearly not beneficial for your spiritual growth (IN GENERAL). Eventhough their advice is great, it's still up to you to use your own wisdom to make the best out of it. Caffeine isn't probably good for someone doing hours of hardcore spiritual practices every day, but that's not you is it?

No matter if you are ''spiritual'' or you are constantly developing yourself or just doing any productive work, you are still propably part of modern society and part of its mechanics, where caffeine plays its role. Therefore it might not be a big deal and it might support your growth at the moment.

Although, it indeed is stupid to let the quality of your day to be determined by some stupid bean, but we are stupid creatures doing stupid stuff 

FYI matcha was used for 1000+ years by Buddhist monks to enhance focus during meditation!

I've always been a caffeine-sensitive person; it's the only caffeinated beverage that I can consume in fairly strong concentration without it messing up my stomach and making me less focused than I would be naturally, without giving the jitters, etc. (Us East Asians tend to like our very tea strong compared to the rest of the world, IMO.)

To the original question: other than the caffeine sensitivity, I'm also pretty sensitive to the acidity in coffee. Cold brew is somewhat better for that reason only.

I like drinking the stuff, but more than that, I think I really just appreciate the ritual that is coffee. Otherwise, mentally and physically speaking, I don't feel like it adds that much to my life, personally. Even just getting in my one cup. As a person with a sensitive nervous system, who has always had a sensitive nervous system... if I am actually tired, let alone burnt out? Nervous system stimulation via coffee (but like, not in a focused way), upsetting my stomach and my nerves, and getting a crash later is literally the last thing that I need.

These days I find myself pounding my digestive spices to put into my chai the old-fashioned way with a mortar and pestle: personally I like star anise, cinnamon, green cardamom, black pepper, cloves. Microplaned fresh ginger. (No fennel, ew.) IDK... it just tastes better. Also, all of these spices have a "warming", energizing effect. Even if you make a drink with those spices without the caffeine, it still has that effect.

[Arthogaan]

Anecdotally coffee was BY FAR the hardest drug to quit for me. Alcohol, cigarettes, modafinil, sugar - all of them were much easier to quit.

The commom myth is that it takes one week for withdrawal to be gone. Well, for some maybe, but for me it took 3 months to even start having moments of energy during a day. And social pressure makes it the hardesy to quit also because the cult of being stimulated is everywhere. Your family, friends, coworkers - everyone uses it to get through the day to suck up the boring tasks.

It is so much i our culture that coffee shops place sign like "life starts after coffee".

Imagine such sign with any other drug.

[Nilsi]

4 hours ago, Roy said:

Not only is it disgusting to eat that much meat, it's an insult to any ethical standards or sustainability. Think about the plethora of animals that have to die weekly just to keep a single stupid human alive.

How people get attracted and tricked into such insane eating habits is beyond me. You can think of any category of food ever and there is some mouth breather somewhere who is preaching it as gospel. There was some dude on here months ago claiming eating pure fruit is the way to go. lol sorry man but if I'm gonna be a firefighter carrying heavy shit constantly I need a bit better fuel than ****** oranges and pineapple.

From what I've seen what you eat doesn't really need to be hyper specific. As long as it's balanced and you are exercising and get your blood moving, your body will start to take a better shape. This isn't a pass to not care about what you consume, obviously. In the end though if you want a 6 pack you need to hit the gym, period.

Unless you get a 6 pack of beer of course 

 

How about the ethical obligations you have toward yourself.

Saying that it doesn't really matter what one eats is just ignorant.

I've tried veganism and vegetarianism for years, trying to get it right, but I felt like shit compared to how I feel on this meat-based diet.

Also, what if keeping my mind sharp has actually a much bigger net positive impact on the ecology? Being vital and fully energized allows me to do higher quality work and to develop myself much more rapidly, which are all net positives.

So it's not as simple as you make it out to be.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Nilsi

[Roy]

47 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Also, what if keeping my mind sharp has actually a much bigger net positive impact on the ecology? Being vital and fully energized allows me to do higher quality work and to develop myself much more rapidly, which are all net positives.

These are just bullshit ego games and rationalizations. Which is ok by the way, since we are all in the same predicament boat. What is "net positive" for you (us) may not be so great for a lot of beings around us. Human activity (currently) at it's core is fundamentally corrosive to ecology and the natural systems around us. If this isn't obvious well, there is nothing I provide to meaningfully upgrade your awareness. You'll have to come to it on your own.

Unless your work is literally directly impactful on ecology and sustainability, or shifting the consciousness of others in a positive way, chances are you are less than neutral force, or draining on the ecology like most people.

Not placing blame either, this seems to be par the course per evolution.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Roy