Health / Food / Blood Pressure (merged)

I think that’s it’s likely that within a balanced died, everything is OK in moderation. Steak every day, probably not.
Eating egg whites every day is probably not going to “bung up your arteries”.
Eating large amounts of high fat content cheese everyday is likely not going to be too healthy.

Going plant based (I still don’t know what the difference is with Vegan, other the name and the connotation some have with it), is a good way to achieve a balanced diet, but I don’t believe it is the only one.
I am fortunate enough to have many example of very healthy people around me, in a variety of ages, that just never ate a lot of processed food / sweets, but probably ate some form of meat / dairy every day.
My grandparents still garden and they are close to their 90s.
My mom is in her 60s, and in a shape that many 40s might envy – She doesn’t eat a lot of meat, but there is probably no days where she eats 100% plant based (peas fresh from the garden are much better with butter, for instance!), although the diet includes essentially no processed foods, and lots of vegetables (a large part from the garden).

When I switched from a balanced died to vegan (breakfast and lunch weekdays, half of the dinners in the week), the effects on my tension were ~none (but it is always on the low end anyway).

The problem is that in the UK it is harder to eat a balanced diet – Probably because people have less of a historical “food interest”, and are happier to gobble something from Greggs. At work, especially around breakfast, I see some horrid mixtures of scrambled eggs, baked beans, cheese.

In London, it is very hard to find a fishmonger, or a butcher, to cook quality meals. People are likely to get some “ready to cook” meal from MS, and a lot of them even feel discussed at seeing the entire fish in a plate! These usually taste much worse than the “real thing”, so they end up going for “tastier” processed foods (e.g. lasagna).

Noe wrote:

I still don’t know what the difference is with Vegan, other the name and the connotation some have with it

Vegan means that you don’t eat any food of animal origin – neither eggs nor dairy. In extreme cases, vegans won’t even eat vegetarian foods if the production has somehow involved animals, like honey.

And there’s the danger of eating mainly home-grown food. If some mineral is lacking from the soil, it and any chemical requiring it will be lacking from your diet.
It might be a micronutrient which has not yet been established as necessary for a human diet.
If almost universally present, it won’t be noticed.
So eat food from a variety of sources.
P.S. Last year, 2 nights in Grimsby, I looked about and each time I ended up with chicken salad in Macdonald’s as the best option.

“Plant based” to me suggests that the majority of the diet is plants, but meat/fish/dairy is still acceptable (otherwise we’d call it vegetarian or vegan).

However, I suspect occasional consumption of a steak, or the amount of dairy found in a cup of milky tea, or having some chicken with your lunch, or olive oil isn’t the “artery bunger” that Peter suspects it is.

I think the real problem is actually the chronic overuse of motor vehicles, and the chronic inactivity it brings, and how these things have mollycoddled us (seriously, I hear some of the silliest excuses why people don’t bike to work when they live under 5 miles away, e.g: “There are hills here” – the hills make you strong, “The weather isn’t suitable here like it is in the Netherlands” – the low countries are just as wet, and my 6000km of cycle commuting this year alone will disprove that or “the roads aren’t suitable for bikes” (actually the roads in the Isle of Man are more suitable for bicycles than they are for cars). All excuses, and meanwhile 90% of the people in our office suffer from a chronic lack of exercise. Their cars are killing them far more than their diet.

Peter, here I’m in total disagreement with you. Just because most fo the western world is unhealthy and obese, this has nothing to do with meat consumption (but everything to do with sugar). Ask yourself why 84% of vegans and vegetarians go back to eating meat eventually?

Vegan statistics.

Plant based is great for the first few years, as you’re in effect fasting yourself. And as anyone who’s done some prolonged fasting will tell you, is that you tend to have tons of energy and feel great doing so initially. But long term, eventually, the nutrient deficiencies will show up. Honestly, go to any vegan forum and you will see thread after thread of people asking about how to get rid of their acne, hair loss, tooth problems, menstruation problems, rashes, etc, etc – you name it. Always tons of ailments that have popped up and need addressing with a new “elimination” diet. People, this is not normal. If you’re losing your period as a young vegan female, something is majorly wrong. And after returning to protein and eggs, magically all these things go away…

Also, if we think that sugar and carbs are the big enemy in the western diet (which I do), then veganism certainly isn’t the answer as they consume pretty much only that. It would be almost impossible to be vegan and not consume carbs. Fruitarian? Gimme a break – it’s like eating candy every day and will for certain introduce you to type 2 diabetes. Sugar is sugar, no matter where it comes from from a cell perspective. The whole nonsense of “well, it’s healthy sugar” is delusional. Yes, your fruit sugar comes with beneficial vitamins and minerals, but the sugar portion of that banana is exactly the same as eating the sugar in the Snickers bar.

Adam, a friend of mine (high level athlete) describes pretty much exactly what you say here.

I have never seen any stats (at all, I was about to write “convincing”) that the vegans in India live longer / better than their omni or vegetarian fellow countryman.

Of course, a plant based diet is going to essentially eliminate processed foods, and that’s where probably most of the improvement is done. I think if peter were to add some grilled fish / chicken to his current diet every single day, there probably wouldn’t be any noticeable effect in his health “numbers”. There probably wouldn’t be much of an improvement either, since he doesn’t do a ton of sport (that I know of), and already eats fish etc occasionally.