Hello all,

Been a little while since I've written. Hope everyone is doing well.

I have a question, or actually, a request for knowledge. I work with a
very much all-natural, new-age type person. Both he and his wife are
vegetarians who don't eat anything but organically grown food. And of
course, most people who have made that big of a lifestyle change are at
the ready with facts to back up why organic food and a no meat diet is
the healthiest, wisest, most bodily beneficial way to go. The rest of
us usually don't have that knowledge.

I know the general consensus here is that there's nothing blatantly bad
proven about the standard fare, in fact I recall making some
blood-pressures rise when I ignorantly asked about natural alternatives
to sugar quite a while back.

My question is, what 'intellectual ammunition' can I use to argue the
point for, well, artificial sweeteners specifically, and possibly also
the other non-organic food?

Our conversations are never hostile, we have light hearted, almost
comical discussions, I'd just like to bring some points up that he can't
deny. ;-)

Thanks,
Ken

Kenneth Pardue wrote:
Hemlock is both natural and organic... I wouldn't ingest it. :-) BJ

When people say things like "It's all-natural, so it can't hurt me," I
politely remind them that arsenic is all natural.

I don't have the serious answers you may be looking for. I have never felt
the need to study the benefits/drawbacks of either type of eating. I look
forward to reading some posts to your question.

Steph

"BJ in Texas" <bjtexas@hotmale.com> wrote in message
news:qh6Ab.497$Gy7.271843424@newssvr11.news.prodig y.com...

This post not CC'd by email
On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 14:17:36 -0600, Kenneth Pardue
<kenneth@NOSPAMpardue.com> wrote:

G'day G'day Kenneth,

Let's hope they are not vegans. Vegetarians especially those who
include fish as well as eggs and dairy products find it easy to design
and implement diets that achieve the RDA for minerals and vitamins.

Vegans are notorious for believing they have found an answer to Vit
B12 deficiency when the truth is not with them. Several studies have
found clinically observable symptoms of Vit B12 deficiency in about
40% of long term vegans. A trap they frequently fall into is to
believe they are getting Vit B12 from spirulina when in fact it
contains a homologue of Vit B12 that actually impedes the absorption
of genuine Vit B12. There comes a point where the symptoms are not
reversible.

There is an element of truth in this. When challenged to come up with
diet for ONE DAY that met various well regarded criteria, med students
and nursing students for the most part struggled and some seemed
destined to never succeed. The exceptions were the non-vegan
vegetarians. They completed the assignment in a couple of days while
their class mates struggled for a week or longer.

Quite.

Do you? I would have thought most people regard the SAD as sad.

Perhaps I'm not seeing other people as clearly as I might given my own
dietary views.

Sugar is an emotive topic on asd. Now that is hardly surprising.
People here are reflection of societies mores.

Some might subscribe to the 10% upper limit for sugar as prescribed by
the UN and some might subscribe to the 25% upper limit that the sugar
industry. Both these figures are percentage of total calories.

In practice the SAD has 40% of carbs from sugar and another 38% from
flour. What this is as a percentage of total calories I am momentarily
too lazy to work out.

Well you could argue for xylitol. It apparently defeats the bacteria
responsible for tooth decay. Pretty amazingly it would appear that
mothers who use xylitol don't infect their babies with the tooth decay
bacteria that is a big advantage.

http://www.xylitol.org/drmakinen.htm


Of course what you want to do with your time is up to you. In your
position I might be more tempted to learn as much as I can from these
folks and then add some shellfish, fish, eggs etc if they aren't.

But then I am more interested in being successful than right. Some
people just love arguing and I can see how you might want to redress
the balance.

Best wishes,
--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
New Zealand, >#,#< [
/ \ /\
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin

Kenneth Pardue <kenneth@NOSPAMpardue.com> wrote in alt.support.diabetes:


The best intellectual ammunition you can use is kindly telling them that
you respect their choices - and would they be so kind to respect yours.

Having a conviction is okay, hammering others to death with it is _not_
okay.

--
CeeBee


"I am not a crook"


Google CeeBee @ www.geocities.com/ceebee_2

"Kenneth Pardue" <kenneth@NOSPAMpardue.com> wrote in message
news:vt1puhnbbs1h84@corp.supernews.com...
This is not necessarily true. I was a vegetarian for many years and would
still be one now were it not for the anemia I keep getting if I don't eat
meat. And still most of my meals are meatless, but I do try to eat some red
meat at least once a week. I just prefer eating vegetarian meals because
they taste better to me and don't make me feel yucky like meat does. If I
eat more than a few bites of meat, I get all sluggish and the meat sits in
my stomach like a lead weight.

I also buy some organic vegetables, although I don't think they are
necessarily any better for you. The main reason I buy them is that
sometimes that's the only kind I can find. I like certain exotic vegetables
that don't seem to come any other way. I would not normally seek them out
as opposed to regular vegetables because I don't think they're worth the
price. And I also don't believe there is any way to certify 100% that they
are organic. So much stuff is in the soil and the air these days that even
if you did attempt organic gardening, things could get in there that you
didn't intend.

That being said, when I have grown vegetables, I generally avoid the
pesticides, mainly because I don't want to pay for them. Hehe! But I have
used some some powders when things were munching on my veggies. It doesn't
worry me. It washes off, so long as you are not using a systemic product.
Try looking at such places as snopes.com or urbanlegends.com. I know you'll
find stuff about the sweeteners, and perhaps even organic food.
Ah, but he can deny anything! You could even have something in black and
white, but if his mind is made up, there is nothing you can do. I say this
because my own parents have some really odd ideas about foods based on
things they've read or have been told. I've learned it does no good at all
to try to dissuade them or prove them wrong. They think they are doing
something healthy and so long as it doesn't affect me, I don't really care.
But if they serve me something sweetened with Stevia and lie to me about it,
not telling me that it is in fact Stevia, they are going to hear about it.
They know how I feel about certain things and I know how they feel. Neither
one of us is going to change the other.

--
Type 2
http://users.bestweb.net/~jbove/

Diets are like religion and politics. I try not to discuss them much
with my friends, unless I know we're like minded. ;-) Good to hear from
you though.

Cheri
Type 2, no meds for now.


Kenneth Pardue wrote in message ...

There is nothing inherently wrong with being a vegetarian. There is
something wrong with anyone who says that their way is the only way,
and that it is the only way for EVERYBODY. As for the New Age stuff,
as long as they listen to Yanni, wearing headphones, in their pyramid
while playing with their crystals,and visiting a past life or two on
the astral plane, all I can say is "Way Too Kewl Dude"

Sleepy

On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 14:17:36 -0600, Kenneth Pardue
<kenneth@NOSPAMpardue.com> wrote:



-----------------------------------------------------------
You can tell those republicans sure do like the poor folks,
They just keep helping create more and more of them!
-----------------------------------------------------------

Ken,

Great subject, can be evolved to cover the history of man.
You could try to get an agreement on what is organic, at the least, what is
acceptable to them. Does organic imply a certain purity or is black
fertilizer ( composted human waste) acceptable?
Then you can point that your ancestors where cave men who liked to hunt and
eat meat.They had no interest in working the fields. The lived for millions
of years on this diet.
Other people are related to gorillas and orang-utans and like to eat leafs
and tender shoots. They started agriculture 10,000 years ago, became
dependent on carbohydrate and had to labor the fields ever since. They
developed arthritic joints from grinding kernels and lost their teeth
prematurely from eating whole grain flat bread. They invented diabetes when
they finally learned to grind the kernels and to use yeast to make the bread
edible. Diabetes was known to the Greeks at least 2500 years ago. They named
it diabetes or sugar illness.


Good luck

Fred Henzi

"Kenneth Pardue" <kenneth@NOSPAMpardue.com> wrote in message
news:vt1puhnbbs1h84@corp.supernews.com...
Hi Ken,

Some years ago I went that vegetarian and all natural route for a short
time. I never felt worse in my life!

Finally I went back to eating meat again and the improvement was noticeable.
The couple who had influenced me to give up meat and go veggie continued on,
however, and she got pregnant with her first child. Halfway through her
pregnancy she became very ill and the doctor told her that she absolutely
HAD to eat a better diet or she might deprive or even lose her baby.
Finally she saw the light, but only after an awful health crisis in which
she almost lost her baby.

OK so that is just an anecdote, but think about the veggie issue this way;

If your heritage is let's say... Northern European, your forbears, for
thousands of years ate a varied diet of meat, milk products, some grains and
vegetables in season. Those who did not do well on that diet, died off and
a process of natural selection took place. Those who thrived on that diet
lived to reproduce and those who did not died off early.

Now take the guy who lives in a Japanese fishing village. He is also the
product of thousands of years of people who lived on seaweed and fish and a
bit of rice. The same process occurred there. Those who thrived lived and
those who did not died off.

OK now think about yourself, the product of your forbears, having through
thousands of years, developed the right enzymes and such to digest a certain
kind of diet, suddenly starts eating like the guy in the Japanese fishing
village....... or worse yet with almost no protein at all.....

What is wrong with this picture? Why do the individuals who go on these
kinds of diets always look so pale and so thin and so sickly? Because they
are going totally against nature and what their bodies need, that is why!

Now if they ate a varied diet, involving meats and fruits and vegetables in
season that is similar to what their forbears did so well on as to have
survived, the chances they will do well are pretty good too :-)

So much the better if the food is NOT chemically altered with poisonous
fertilizers and bug sprays and even better if they limit the amounts of food
they eat. It has been proven that eating less in general enhances
longevity.

Now about the artificial sweeteners we come into a "sticky" situation :-)
The people who are most concerned with using artificial sweeteners are those
who are overweight and those who suffer from disorders which do not allow us
to process sugar cleanly, and so we suffer from dangerous levels of sugar in
our blood enough to damage our organs.

People have only begun to use processed sugar in large quantities recently
in our evolutionary development, and it really isn't good for us. Same
with the mass produced flour and overprocessed artificial everything, which
when combined with our sedentary lifestyles results in a rotten condition
known as diabetes type 2. (I won't go into type one, since that is
actually another illness but both are characterized by an impaired way the
body handles sugar).

So you tell me.....? What is better for a person who suffers from this
condition? To eat some nice "natural" sugar or honey which our bodies have
no longer any idea what to do with?..... or perhaps some nice "natural"
stevia which has been implicated in some liver problems? Or is it better
to use some NOT so natural artificial sweetener which has been tested
rigorously for many years by the FDA, that isn't going to mess up my blood
glucose and isn't going to destroy my organs? Of course that answer is
obvious.

Natural isn't always better and unnatural isn't always bad for you. If you
get sick there are some unnatural chemicals called antibiotics that may cure
you, and some perfectly natural germs that can kill you.

This natural vs unnatural food controversy is all too often just an excuse
for people to exercise some weird way of eating that inconveniences everyone
to some degree, calling attention to themselves, while they are perfectly
ready to take some unnatural antibiotic to cure them, or communicate via an
unnatural cell phone or travel in an unnatural car or airplane. It is a
power trip of some kind... a "look at me I am better than you" trip...an "I
am more discriminating than you" issue, and sometimes just an attention
getting game.

I don't deny there are people who really believe they are healthier eating
that way, but I haven't seen that demonstrated in actual life. Those I
have known seem to suffer from just as many ailments as the rest of us.

I don't think it is wrong to exercise some sensible discrimination about
food that has been contaminated with overzealous farming methods like toxic
pesticides and fertilizers, nor do I think it is anything but smart to limit
the amounts of high density foods like meat, but half the time these people
who make "natural and organic and vegetarian" into some kind of religious
mantra are just egotists who are on a kick to make themselves look better
than the rest of the lot.

If they don't need an artificial sweetener that is nice for them, but they
were obviously lucky enough to have the right genetic material not to get
diabetes and need it. I use aspartame and sucralose and even saccharin on
occasion. For me it is a good thing, natural or not.

(this post is all in good fun..... I really don't much care what or how
others eat, but you did ask for some ammo :-)

--
Evelyn

(To reply to me personally, remove sox)

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 16:07:01 -0800, "Cheri"
<gservice@inreachnogarbage.com> wrote:

Above prose edited

Well, we are not like minded on either, and yet we still discuss them.
Does this mean you are not my friend? HaHa

Sleepy




-----------------------------------------------------------
You can tell those republicans sure do like the poor folks,
They just keep helping create more and more of them!
-----------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 14:17:36 -0600, Kenneth Pardue wrote:


Point out that humans are intended to eat meat. One must only look at the
teeth. Also point out a diet high in grains is what is used to fatten
livestock :-)

On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 18:11:47 -0500, Julie Bove wrote:

And so... there you have it.. That's why we have teeth designed to rip
meat.

"Kenneth Pardue" <kenneth@NOSPAMpardue.com> wrote in message
news:vt1puhnbbs1h84@corp.supernews.com...
Hi there Ken,

Actually, I am not opposed to organically grown foods, including
eggs and livestock that eat are fed on more natural sources.
Ongoing research is starting to show that there are indeed some
nutritional benefits, as well as such practises being more
sustainable and environmentally friendly. A lot of them taste
better as well. Neither am I opposed to some "artificially created"
substances that make life more bearable.

BUT

My hubby and I also have friends who are devoted vegetarians, and
engage us in "light-hearted, comical" discussions, ( some kind of
game where people can disguise their true motives - whatever that
may be!)

So we reply in the same spirit, by making a joke about it. It ends
the conversation without rancour. Here's a couple of examples.

"If God hadn't intended us to eat animals, He wouldn't have made
them out of MEAT! "
- John Cleese

At least I kill my food before I eat it.

If carrots could scream would you still eat them raw?

I bet you even eat baby vegetables!

You only eat something that can't run faster than you.

Annette
You can't use logic to argue someone out of a position they didn't
arrive at logically in the first place.



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
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This post not CC'd by email
On Sat, 6 Dec 2003 20:28:49 +1100, "Annette" <acianthus@bigpond.com>
wrote:

G'day G'day Annette,

Delightful.

IMHO most controversial positions are arrived at emotionally and logic
is used as an entrenching tool.

Best wishes,

--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
New Zealand, >#,#< [
/ \ /\
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin

"Kenneth Pardue" <kenneth@NOSPAMpardue.com> wrote in message
news:vt1puhnbbs1h84@corp.supernews.com...

Why do you feel a need to argue with him about it? He has chosen a healthy
life that is suitable for him; you have chosen a life that is suitable for
you. Is he trying to force his choices on you?
As far as artificial sweeteners are concerned, there is nothing wrong with
moderate amounts of sugar for someone who is not diabetic, so if he has
chosen to avoid the artificial stuff, he is not hurting anyone.
Live and let live.

--
Take care,
Melanie
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PoliticalMatters/
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we
are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and
servile, but is morally treasonable to the American
.." -Theodore Roosevelt 26th US President (1858-1919)

Yes, but If you piss me off I can killfile the thread, not that you
ever have. Also, I don't have to offer you a beer or a cigarette just
because you happened to stop by. LOL


Sleepyman wrote in message ...

On Sat, 6 Dec 2003 12:45:05 -0800, "Cheri"
<gservice@inreachnogarbage.com> wrote:

I quit drinking a couple of years ago when I was DX,d damn it.

Sleepy


-----------------------------------------------------------
You can tell those republicans sure do like the poor folks,
They just keep helping create more and more of them!
-----------------------------------------------------------

"Melanie Rush" <melanie.rush@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:JPqAb.403937$0v4.19987036@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
I feel that I should mention here that this person and I are good friends.
We don't 'argue' about it per se. As I mentioned above, we just have light
hearted discussions about it. The both of us are completely comfortable
with and respect the other's eating lifestyles. It's just one of those
situations where we bring it up in passing, "But ya know..." We usually
wind up both learning more about our own lifestyles as a product of our
discussions, so I think we both find it helpful.

That said, thanks to all for the responses, very interesting reading!

Kenneth

Ronnie Ruff wrote:

My dog has teeth intended for cutting meat. A cow has teeth intended for
grinding vegetation. I have both cutting teeth and flat molars.

I can do well on both, thank you. The bigger issues are which ones of which. I
prefer organic because of pesticides and other crap. You'll have a rough time
convincing me that pesticides are nutritious.

I'm a vegetarian - not for any healthier than thou California bullshit, but
because I prefer not killing things. But not eating meat isn't any healthier.
It's good to not eat too much meat, and I've seen plenty of vegan fare that's
loaded with saturated fats and other crap.

Ergo:

Vegetarian isn't an issue, it's a preference. It may or may not be healthier
depending on what all you eat.

Organic IS an issue! So is E coli in meat and hepatitus in onions. Our food
industry sells us shit.

Jon