True story from real life, not pulled from the web:
I had an angiogram four years ago, looking for the source of a pain (it turned out to be a small stomach lesion). The nurses were shocked to find zero plaque in my arteries. That's 0%. "A man of your age, I'd expect to see at least 50% build-up", said one of them. They were mystified.
The light came on when I told them I didn't eat meat or dairy. "Ah, that explains it," said another.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
I can well believe that The Human Body (which let's face it hasn't really changed since the stone age) is better equipped to deal with oodles of animal fat than with oodles of sugar and carbohydrates.
After all, we didn't spend hundreds of thousands of years chasing herds of bread and biscuits through the tundra/primordial forests, did we?
emordnilap wrote:Heh heh. Enjoy the cholesterol, saturated fat etc etc etc and so on.
Hmmm, you think there is something wrong with saturated fat?
Saturated Fat Does NOT Promote Heart Disease
The avoidance of saturated fat actually promotes poor health in a number of ways, compounding the health risks of following this completely outdated and dangerous advice. As stated by the author, Aseem Malhotra, an interventional cardiology specialist registrar at Croydon University Hospital in London:
“The mantra that saturated fat must be removed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease has dominated dietary advice and guidelines for almost four decades. Yet scientific evidence shows that this advice has, paradoxically, increased our cardiovascular risks....
The aspect of dietary saturated fat that is believed to have the greatest influence on cardiovascular risk is elevated concentrations of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.
Yet the reduction in LDL cholesterol from reducing saturated fat intake seems to be specific to large, buoyant (type A) LDL particles, when in fact it is the small, dense (type B) particles (responsive to carbohydrate intake) that are implicated in cardiovascular disease.
Indeed, recent prospective cohort studies have not supported any significant association between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular risk Instead, saturated fat has been found to be protective.” [Emphasis mine]
Carbohydrates/Sugar, Not Fat, is the Root of Heart Disease
Unfortunately, many doctors and health officials alike are still trying to assure you that you can safely indulge in sweet treats, provided it’s in moderation. This line of reasoning completely falls apart however, if you eat a diet consisting primarily of processed foods, because virtually ALL of them are loaded with processed carbohydrates and fructose.
Especially for you, I've edited my original post, so you don't misinterpret it.
Your body makes its own cholesterol and saturated fat. Therefore, it makes little sense to consume it, especially from another species.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
Which post are you describing as your "original"? I may not be able to misinterpret it, certainly won't if I can't find it.
Humans were eating meat from millenia ago. It's part of the normal diet. Eating excessive amounts is not likely to be a good idea, but total abstinence from meat means you will probably consume something else, which may be equally problematic.
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
Evolution only requires that we remain healthy until our offspring reach full independence. Pre-civilisation that was probably about 35-40. The grand-mother baby sitter effect probably extends that to 55.
I'd say the babysitter thing should last longer than that: peole used to space-out their children quite a bit, no? By things like breast-feeding til the age of 3 and the like. So having 5 kids'd take you 12 years, and you'd still want your own mum around all the way up til the last one grew up. That's a long time even if you're quicker off the mark than us in Famille Renewable!
I can't remember where I heard it, but apparently early people had fewer children, by quite some margin, than people of the "recent" old days (i.e. Victorians). 5 was apparently typical.
I'd agree with your 2nd para in a lot of cases, mind
Many people ask exactly how it is that those smoking mice were protected from deadly radioactive particles, and even more are asking why real figures nowadays are showing far more non-smokers dying from lung cancer than smokers. Professor Sterling of the Simon Fraser University in Canada is perhaps closest to the truth, where he uses research papers to reason that smoking promotes the formation of a thin mucous layer in the lungs, "which forms a protective layer stopping any cancer-carrying particles from entering the lung tissue."
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
Whatever form the Second Religiosity of our age happens to take, whatever ways we and our descendants cobble together to counter the barbarism of reflection and keep the unsteady structures of human thought from the same plunge into chaos that left Nietzsche babbling incoherently with his arms around the neck of a beaten horse, among the basic requirements of the time before us are giving the conception of Man the conqueror of Nature a decent burial, and finding a way to imagine ourselves that has some relation to the realities of the human condition in a world on the far side of a failed industrial project.
