The Western Diet: Bane or Boon?

[raw_vegan_girl]

It depends on the medical condition you’re trying to manage. If one has diabetes or hypoglycemia and s/he wants to fast by cutting on food intake (decreasing carb, protein, and fat) then s/he’d have to be under medical supervision coz fasting this way can be dangerous.

Doing a vegan or raw fast can be time-consuming, but if one lives the presence of God then s/he can just turn his or her thoughts to God while doing all the food prep since we can tune in to God anytime we want whatever we are doing. On the other hand there are lots of vegan or raw recipes that are very simple and uncomplicated and therefore will take less time preparing, giving you more time to just talk exclusively to God or read a spiritual book and meditate on the points that strike you.

Vegetarian/vegan/raw fasts can be rather difficult even if you’re consuming enough calories to enable you to go to work, school, etc. It can be be very trying when you’re eating out and your colleague is eating a philly steak and cheese sandwich while you’re munching on a veggie burger or raw salad

 

[Emerite]

I do think the U.S. diet needs improving, and we need to improve our health to remain strong as a nation. Maybe our improved health would help alleviate some problems with our national healthcare dilemma. A good diet should be one of our priorities over all the distractions of the world today. Our widowed Mom worked, and somehow managed to prepare very nutritious meals – with lots of fresh produce. We were so healthy that my brothers and I never had to see doctors for illness in the 1940’s and 1950’s. We played out of doors a lot (had no TV, etc.), and were so hungry at mealtimes that we ate everything on our plates. I worked outside the home while rearing a family, and found that the energy gained by having a good diet, made it possible to feel well enough to take the time to prepare good meals. I posted a chart on the inside door of our spice shelf, listing four weeks of meals incorporating good nutrition with the kids’ preferences. Also, if meal preparation is such a chore, I’d get the kids to help out, giving them a feeling of accomplishment by contributing at home.

 

[Marfran]

I do think the U.S. diet needs improving, and we need to improve our health to remain strong as a nation. **Maybe our improved health would help alleviate some problems with our national healthcare dilemma. **A good diet should be one of our priorities over all the distractions of the world today.

Absolutely!!!

 

[jargon631]

I am so glad my posting was helpful and the other website is the one that shows how miracles take place regarding physical illness when at least 2/3 of our diet is fresh, live, raw food from the earth. Makes sense…it still has life in it! On www.hacres.com it will actually have a list of diseases to click on to read about all of the people who got well eating this diet. It is the most important website a sick person should go to.

Wanting to take a class this year taught be Seventh Day Adventist and will be about this very topic. They will also have joint prayer sessions. Anyone know if the prayer part will be a “no,no” for me as a Catholic…or if Seventh Day Adventist are Catholic friendly?

while they have a VERY good health message, the sda is most assuredly NOT catholic friendly…prayer is prayer so i dont think it matters where you pray, but a substantial part of sda doctrine(eg white)is virulently anti-catholic…i know this because i grew up in the sda and spent 13 years in one of their boarding schools…fd

 

[Marfran]

while they have a VERY good health message, the sda is most assuredly NOT catholic friendly…prayer is prayer so i dont think it matters where you pray, but a substantial part of sda doctrine(eg white)is virulently anti-catholic…i know this because i grew up in the sda and spent 13 years in one of their boarding schools…fd

We are discussing the Western diet. So we would be focusing on the health message here.

 

[jargon631]

We are discussing the Western diet. So we would be focusing on the health message here.

in case you hadnt noticed, i was answering ALL the questions in the persons post…perhaps you should read jewells post in order to familiarize yourself with what that individual had asked……fd

 

[Marfran]

in case you hadnt noticed, i was answering ALL the questions in the persons post…perhaps you should read jewells post in order to familiarize yourself with what that individual had asked……fd

Sorry, I missed the part where she asked about SDA and if it was Ok to take a class, are they Catholic friendly. I just recalled the videos on nutrition that she posted.

 

[jargon631]

Sorry, I missed the part where she asked about SDA and if it was Ok to take a class, are they Catholic friendly. I just recalled the videos on nutrition that she posted.

and im sorry that i was so snappish…back to food…i was raised vegetarian and didnt eat meat until i joined the army…although i am definately an omnivore, i think that the vegetarian way is healthier, less expensive, and just as versatile as eating meat…maybe even more so…frederick

 

[aspawloski4th]

and im sorry that i was so snappish…back to food…i was raised vegetarian and didnt eat meat until i joined the army…although i am definately an omnivore, i think that the vegetarian way is healthier, less expensive, and just as versatile as eating meat…maybe even more so…frederick

How do you get your vitamin D and Vitamin B12? No plant sources for those!

 

[Marfran]

How do you get your vitamin D and Vitamin B12? No plant sources for those!

I love you dude, but you are always bashing vegetarians ans vegans probably because you do not fully understand nutrition, subscribe to some of the health myths created by the meat and dairy industries, and have your own specific health issues that you are struggling with. I have posted a long essay **on vitamin B-12 in another thread **which I know you have read. Getting enough vitamin D is an issue for everyone, as people are using sun block to protect their skin. I know numerous omnivores who are taking vitamin supplements as instructed to by their doctors. Vitamin D is essential in assisting the absorption of calcium, among other things.

Plant sources of previtamin D2 naturally occur in mushrooms, certain seaweeds, and yeast. When our skin is exposed to ultraviolet radiation (sunlight), a compound derived from cholesterol that is present in the oil glands throughout the skin is transformed to vitamin D3. Further body processes convert this to an active form of vitamin D that performs many body functions.

 

[Marfran]

The way that we eat has changed more in the last 50 years, than in the last ten thousand…

bit.ly/12nDKS

 

[jargon631]

How do you get your vitamin D and Vitamin B12? No plant sources for those!

well…i spend a lot of time outside…i have a 5 hive apiary, a garden, and i mushroom hunt in season…i also work construction so most of my day is spent in sunlight…fd

 

[jargon631]

The way that we eat has changed more in the last 50 years, than in the last ten thousand…

bit.ly/12nDKS

i agree,and the change has not been for the better…everything in our lives is pre-processed…from food to what we do with our spare time is presented as a convenient package, with no thought or effort necessary…our cultural sloth is disgusting…think cob houses and solar/wind power……fd

 

[ML561]

Did you know that the diet industry and the high-calorie food manufacturers are in cahoots?
Jenny Craig and Slim-Fast are owned by the same companies which produce such goods as Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

Read an excellent book called “Stuffed and Starved”, by Raj Patel for more information about this. Peace be with you.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The way that we eat has changed more in the last 50 years, than in the last ten thousand…

bit.ly/12nDKS

I would disagree perhaps a bit.

Maybe this is so for some; perhaps many, but it hasn’t changed for me except that my wife cooks more healthily than my mother did. Olive oil instead of bacon grease for this or that; more salad, less fat. Less starch. Less sugary baking. But the basic ingredients and the general approaches to them aren’t hugely different. I will say that my wife has largely eschewed some of the more staggeringly fatty recipes of her Alsatian forbears, though she’ll splurge periodically with one of them. They are awfully good, I’ll grant.

I would say the same about my wife’s cooking versus my Irish grandmother’s cooking. Same basic stuff, just more attention to saturated fats, excessive sugar, and so on. My grandmother learned how to cook from her mother, and cooked a lot of stuff out of her mother’s recipe book, which my sister now has. I’m not sure where my great-grandmother got her recipes; perhaps from her mother. Everybody adds a little here, though, and deletes a little there, over time.

So, while maybe a lot of people eat fast foods, taking them out of that “chain of recipes” that might stretch back for a very long time indeed, I don’t see where basic cooking has really changed all that much in a century and more.

 

[Marfran]

our cultural sloth is disgusting…

I am going to remember this quote–right on way to describe it!!!

 

[Marfran]

Did you know that the diet industry and the high-calorie food manufacturers are in cahoots?
Jenny Craig and Slim-Fast are owned by the same companies which produce such goods as Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

Read an excellent book called “Stuffed and Starved”, by Raj Patel for more information about this. Peace be with you.

That’s no surprise!!! That’s why I am a proponent of getting it all out in the open. What’s the diet industry going to do if everyone starts to eat healthy and slim down?? The diet industry wants you fat, and wants you to fail over and over again, and wants you to run to the high calorie processed foods for your binges. Is there any possiblity that we consumers can do this on our own, and fight all the junk food that they dangle in front of us???

 

[Melissa]

That’s no surprise!!! That’s why I am a proponent of getting it all out in the open. What’s the diet industry going to do if everyone starts to eat healthy and slim down?? The diet industry wants you fat, and wants you to fail over and over again, and wants you to run to the high calorie processed foods for your binges. Is there any possiblity that we consumers can do this on our own, and fight all the junk food that they dangle in front of us???

Well, you can always turn to a free program, like SparkPeople.com–there are ads (I mostly ignore them) to finance the site, but it is free to join, and the program is all about portion control and exercise (and even free video snips so you can see how to do the exercises in the program the site will create for you), and recommends setting your goals for a 1-2 lb/week loss. So you won’t get anything like those ‘how I lost 43 lbs in 3 weeks’ ads, but you’re learning healthy eating/exercise habits that will keep it off once you lose it. (They also provide a printout grocery list if you follow the meal plans.) And since nothing is forbidden to eat, you soon learn to prefer a whole baked potato smothered with a half cup of salsa over a ‘serving’ of flavored Pringles, because you get a whole lot more food to enjoy with the baked potato/salsa.


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[Harpazo]

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Has anyone visited Mediterrasian.com? I’ve used many of their recipes and they are delicious! It is basically an apologia for Mediterranean and Asian cooking and lifestyle, which yields longer, healthier lives in many instances. I am certainly all for eating healthier!

They also have a sort of “shell of a plan” for 7 days on what sorts of things to eat. It’s not really much of a diet as it is a complete lifestyle change, but one could certainly treat it as a diet. I like it because I am Sicilian and I love Asian cultures, so it works out great!

In Christ,
Andrew