Good luck to everyone testing this month!
I had to chime in on the food conversation because it's utterly fascinating to me. I grew up eating a (mostly healthy and almost all homemade) SAD foods ("standard American diet" - I guess you wouldn't use SAD if you didn't grow up in the US, as I did!) and switched to vegetarian when I was 20 after seeing a guy on the UC Berkeley campus with pictures of animals in cages, etc. At 26 I went full-on vegan, and spent 6 months eating 100% organic raw vegan before I got pregnant with my first. I was vegan while pregnant with her, and stayed vegan until she was almost 2, when - for various reasons - I switched to a pretty much paleo (hate that word!) diet. That's how I've eaten for the past 6 years.
I will definitely check out the Game Changers movie - I refuse to call it a "documentary", as it's obviously propaganda -- which is fine! most "documentaries" are actually propaganda, as they are geared towards making the audience come to one specific conclusion. It isn't designed to objectively explore vegetarianism/veganism; it wants you to watch it and decide that YOU should be vegan/vegetarian. And people are very, very good at designing films/articles/books and cherry-picking studies or blowing up one part of the data while minimizing or ignoring others. I'm not even saying that they're wrong; just that there is so much to consider and so many unknowns.
During my years of dietary exploration I have read so much compelling and convincing information on dead-opposite sides of every possible spectrum, to the point where I'm pretty much convinced that nobody knows the ideal diet for people (and that, maybe, there isn't one). While I was raw vegan I was CONVINCED by Dr Doug Graham and his 80/10/10 principle (just google that one - it's fascinating, and when you see the guy, you'll feel convinced, too!). And then you'll read Dr Gundry's "Plant Paradox" and feel equally convinced that we actually shouldn't be eating most plants - nightshades especially. Then you'll read about Joe and Charlene Andersen and their carnivore diet and be convinced that you literally should only eat 100% beef all the time, with nothing else except salt on top and water to drink. Then you'll read all of Dr Mercola's very thorough and compelling arguments about why vaccines are evil and we need to be drinking bone broth all day and eating a GAPS diet. And then you'll come full-circle and read Dr Esselstyn and "The China Study" and you'll think, no, veganism is THE ONLY WAY. But then you'll read about the metabolic theory of cancer and how our biggest health threat is the constant inundation of sugar into our cells, and the answer is a keto diet and intermittent fasting. And finally you'l read about how it doesn't matter WHAT you eat; all that matters is the mindset you have while eating it, and your internal spiritual and emotional state will be what nourishes you more than any food you could possibly eat or avoid. And there are people who are practicing all of these lifestyles who are all the most gorgeous and thriving specimens of human beings you've ever seen, each serving as possibly the most convincing argument for whichever lifestyle they happen to represent. It's enough to make your head spin!
These are all very smart people and they know how to present data, or half-truths, or even worse, full-on pseudoscience (I'm talking to you, "dr" Mercola). And it's very, very, VERY convincing. It seems we have been able to reach a few MOSTLY agreed-upon conclusions; processed food is mostly worse than whole/homemade foods, sitting down and being mindful is good, food dyes are mostly not good. Beyond that... we still have so far to come in our understanding of why some people thrive and others do not. Maybe it is a genetic issue more than anything (the MTHFR question is getting a lot of attention these days), maybe a mental/stress one... maybe the biggest threat to our health is the worry itself about how we're eating! I definitely don't feel like I have any answers beyond what I've discovered makes me feel the best (which is essentially a whole30-style diet) and how I like to eat with my kids and family.
Anyway, thanks for indulging my little spiel
Sending you all my best thoughts and lots of luck!
I had to chime in on the food conversation because it's utterly fascinating to me. I grew up eating a (mostly healthy and almost all homemade) SAD foods ("standard American diet" - I guess you wouldn't use SAD if you didn't grow up in the US, as I did!) and switched to vegetarian when I was 20 after seeing a guy on the UC Berkeley campus with pictures of animals in cages, etc. At 26 I went full-on vegan, and spent 6 months eating 100% organic raw vegan before I got pregnant with my first. I was vegan while pregnant with her, and stayed vegan until she was almost 2, when - for various reasons - I switched to a pretty much paleo (hate that word!) diet. That's how I've eaten for the past 6 years.
I will definitely check out the Game Changers movie - I refuse to call it a "documentary", as it's obviously propaganda -- which is fine! most "documentaries" are actually propaganda, as they are geared towards making the audience come to one specific conclusion. It isn't designed to objectively explore vegetarianism/veganism; it wants you to watch it and decide that YOU should be vegan/vegetarian. And people are very, very good at designing films/articles/books and cherry-picking studies or blowing up one part of the data while minimizing or ignoring others. I'm not even saying that they're wrong; just that there is so much to consider and so many unknowns.
During my years of dietary exploration I have read so much compelling and convincing information on dead-opposite sides of every possible spectrum, to the point where I'm pretty much convinced that nobody knows the ideal diet for people (and that, maybe, there isn't one). While I was raw vegan I was CONVINCED by Dr Doug Graham and his 80/10/10 principle (just google that one - it's fascinating, and when you see the guy, you'll feel convinced, too!). And then you'll read Dr Gundry's "Plant Paradox" and feel equally convinced that we actually shouldn't be eating most plants - nightshades especially. Then you'll read about Joe and Charlene Andersen and their carnivore diet and be convinced that you literally should only eat 100% beef all the time, with nothing else except salt on top and water to drink. Then you'll read all of Dr Mercola's very thorough and compelling arguments about why vaccines are evil and we need to be drinking bone broth all day and eating a GAPS diet. And then you'll come full-circle and read Dr Esselstyn and "The China Study" and you'll think, no, veganism is THE ONLY WAY. But then you'll read about the metabolic theory of cancer and how our biggest health threat is the constant inundation of sugar into our cells, and the answer is a keto diet and intermittent fasting. And finally you'l read about how it doesn't matter WHAT you eat; all that matters is the mindset you have while eating it, and your internal spiritual and emotional state will be what nourishes you more than any food you could possibly eat or avoid. And there are people who are practicing all of these lifestyles who are all the most gorgeous and thriving specimens of human beings you've ever seen, each serving as possibly the most convincing argument for whichever lifestyle they happen to represent. It's enough to make your head spin!
These are all very smart people and they know how to present data, or half-truths, or even worse, full-on pseudoscience (I'm talking to you, "dr" Mercola). And it's very, very, VERY convincing. It seems we have been able to reach a few MOSTLY agreed-upon conclusions; processed food is mostly worse than whole/homemade foods, sitting down and being mindful is good, food dyes are mostly not good. Beyond that... we still have so far to come in our understanding of why some people thrive and others do not. Maybe it is a genetic issue more than anything (the MTHFR question is getting a lot of attention these days), maybe a mental/stress one... maybe the biggest threat to our health is the worry itself about how we're eating! I definitely don't feel like I have any answers beyond what I've discovered makes me feel the best (which is essentially a whole30-style diet) and how I like to eat with my kids and family.
Anyway, thanks for indulging my little spiel
Sending you all my best thoughts and lots of luck!
.
xxx
