Sam Harris going vegan, needs help

[brimstoneSalad]

I want this to be about how nutrition isn't actually that contentious.

First, please see Unnatural Vegan's excellent summary of basic vegan nutrition.

No credible nutritionist or doctor disagrees that the standard American diet as practiced now is unhealthy, or that properly planned vegan diets can be nutritionally complete. It is non-controversial that well planned vegan diets can be healthy. It's also non-controversial that a poorly planned diet of any type can be dangerous.

What seems like controversy from a layman's perspective isn't really science; it's the swirling cesspool of fad diets and pseudoscience that is fed to the public through television and other media.
That's the embarrassment.

From a layman's perspective of psychology or neuroscience, the same controversy regarding the existence of mind-body duality, ESP, or telekinesis may seem to be embroiling our institutions.
As you know, that's just not the case, no matter what ill conceived television shows and documentaries on so called science or discovery channels, and dishonest charlatans may claim.

It's the same issue with nutrition; the trick is to be informed enough to sort out the hokum from the actual science.

The real debate in nutrition swirls around what ideal nutrition is, and the extent to which different dietary components may be more or less healthy. That's a very complicated topic that is outside the scope of this video.
It also raises the important question of what "ideal" nutrition really means.

If we're talking about longevity, attained by minimizing risk of the largest killers -- cancer, heart attack, and stroke -- then minimizing or completely eliminating animal products is very important.

But not all plant products are blameless either -- tobacco is a good example that I'm sure you know. But also plant products very high in methionine or choline, or high in saturated fats like tropical oils, or with excessive Omega-6 outside the context of proportional Omega-3. Empty calories like processed oils, high glycemic like high sugar foods including fruits, low in fiber like many processed plant foods. Mycotoxins found in some fungi, or improperly stored grains, or pretty much all peanuts. I could go on for pages.

Things become a lot more complicated, very quickly, when we start talking about what an ideal diet looks like.

Dr. Greger has a lengthy series of videos covering nutrition topics, including comparing plant foods and exploring optimal nutrition from a skeptical science based perspective. You may enjoy his work at nutritionfacts.org if you're interested in what the latest research has to say on the matter.
PCRM is another great resource for evidence based approach to human health, and mitigating the leading preventable causes of heart disease and cancer.

But obtaining a reasonably healthy diet, or at least not less healthy than the standard American diet, is a much simpler matter which Unnatural Vegan covered very well in her video.

To hedge your bets for a completely idiot proof vegan diet, as she mentioned, Oysters may be an option since they're probably not sentient. Rope grown oysters are more environmentally sustainable, and even if marginally sentient, are at least the least of evils when it comes to animal products.

But aside from that, it's very hard to 'idiot proof' veganism. There's always a way to mess it up if you're determined. But you aren't an idiot.
You know enough to be careful, and balance your diet. Don't eat too much junk food. Focus on legumes and vegetables. Avoid too many sugary foods like fruit, or excessively starchy grains like rice, or corn, which are the only two low protein whole grains. Instead eat more nutritious higher protein whole grains, like whole wheat, oats, buckwheat, and others.

If in doubt, visit a registered dietitian, not a general practitioner or family doctor, since most doctors are not trained in nutrition, and only know the folk nutrition their parents taught them.

You can also use online tools yourself to track your diet, and check macro and micro nutrients against the RDI.

[EmperorPalpatine]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_2ymmvW5w

Unnatural Vegan made a phenomenal video on the topic

Gah, beat me to it by 3 minutes! Your post wasn't on the page when I posted that

[garrethdsouza]

http://veganstrategist.org/2015/08/29/how-to-veganize-sam-harris/

[brimstoneSalad]

http://veganstrategist.org/2015/08/29/h ... am-harris/

Great article, thanks!


To Sam Harris: Idiot proofing veganism

Hi Sam, we want to first thank you for your intellectual honesty, and commend you on your willingness to learn and change.

First, please see Unnatural Vegan's excellent summary of basic vegan nutrition here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_2ymmvW5w

This video will primarily extend on that, regarding points not addressed in that video and that were raised in your podcast.

As to the idea that we don't understand human health and nutrition particularly well, this is a common misconception.

No credible nutritionist or doctor disagrees that the standard American diet as practiced now is unhealthy, or that properly planned vegan diets can be nutritionally complete. It is non-controversial that well planned vegan diets can be healthy. It's also non-controversial that a poorly planned diet of any type can be dangerous.

What seems like controversy from a layman's perspective isn't really science; it's the swirling cesspool of fad diets and pseudoscience that is fed to the public through television and other media.
That's the real embarrassment. No doubt you are in the process of being inundated with it.

From a layman's perspective of psychology or neuroscience, the same controversy regarding the existence of mind-body duality, ESP, or telekinesis may seem to be embroiling our institutions.
As you know, that's just not the case, no matter what ill conceived television shows and documentaries on so called science or discovery channels, and dishonest charlatans may claim.

It's the same issue with nutrition; the trick is to be informed enough to sort out the hokum from the actual science. It's no easy task for a layman. Here are three key points to look for, as a sort of litmus test of credibility:

1. Anybody who advises in any way against B-12 supplementation for vegan diets should not be regarded as credible, period.

2. Anybody who appeals to our "natural diet", or ancestral diet, or evolution as an argument for healthy eating should be suspect; this includes everything from "paleo" to "starch solution". Regardless of what their diets were, we have a better grasp on nutrition than our ancestors ever did, and access to higher quality food stuffs. What they ate is irrelevant to what we should eat today, so anybody fixating on anthropology is barking up the wrong tree.

3. Anybody who claims to be skeptical of the effect of cholesterol and saturated fat on heart disease should really be laughed off the stage today. They might as well be advancing the idea that Elvis is among us.
The lipid hypothesis is the scientific consensus and has been for over thirty years, and really isn't controversial in medicine, despite being the most popular scientific finding to criticize in fad diet circles. Tell people a bacοn diet will solve all of their problems, and you will be sure to sell books, but also equally sure to kill people with bad advice much like the anti-vaccine movement. There's no science to the pro-saturated fat and cholesterol movement, and the studies most commonly cited don't actually support the claims being made in favor of it.

Plant Positive has an excellent breakdown of just one of the unethical publications that attempts to twist data in support of its conclusions:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a-Tx9dCbv-g

The real debate in nutrition swirls around what ideal nutrition is, and the extent to which different dietary components may be more or less healthy. That's a very complicated topic that is outside the scope of this video.
It also raises the important question of what "ideal" nutrition really means.

If we're talking about longevity, attained by minimizing risk of the largest killers -- cancer, heart attack, and stroke -- then minimizing or eliminating animal products -- particularly from tetrapods -- is important.

But not all plant products are blameless either -- tobacco is a good example that I'm sure you know. But also plant products very high in methionine or choline, or high in saturated fats like tropical oils, or with excessive Omega-6 outside the context of proportional Omega-3. Empty calories like processed oils, high glycemic like high sugar foods including fruits, low in fiber like many processed plant foods. Mycotoxins found in some fungi, or improperly stored grains, or pretty much all peanuts. I could go on for pages.

Things become a lot more complicated, very quickly, when we start talking about what an ideal diet looks like, which is always going to be more speculative as we learn more.

Dr. Greger has an extensive series of videos covering nutrition topics, including comparing plant foods and exploring optimal nutrition from a skeptical science based perspective. You may enjoy his work at nutritionfacts.org if you're interested in what the latest research has to say on the matter, which is always changing -- although not that drastically -- how we view the ideal diet.

PCRM is another great resource for evidence based approach to human health, and mitigating the leading preventable causes of heart disease and cancer.

But obtaining a reasonably healthy diet, or at least not less healthy than the standard American diet, is a much simpler matter which Unnatural Vegan covered very well in her video.

To hedge your bets for a completely idiot proof vegan diet, as she mentioned, Oysters may be an option since they're probably not sentient. Rope grown oysters are more environmentally sustainable, and even if marginally sentient, are at least the least of evils when it comes to animal products.

But aside from that, it's very hard to 'idiot proof' veganism since there's no one single source of all macro nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. It's important to mix and match on a vegan diet.
There's always a way to mess it up if you're determined. But you aren't an idiot.
You know enough today to be careful, and balance your diet, and with the resources at hand you should be able to easily learn much more.
Don't eat too much junk food. Focus on legumes and vegetables. Avoid too many sugary foods like fruit, or eating too many excessively starchy grains like rice, or corn, which are the only two low protein whole grains. Instead eat more nutritious higher protein whole grains, like whole wheat, oats, buckwheat, and others.

If in doubt, visit a registered dietitian, not a general practitioner or family doctor, since most doctors are not trained in nutrition, and unfortunately only know the folk nutrition their parents taught them, which is a bit behind the times to say the least.

You can also use online tools yourself to track your diet, and check macro and micro nutrients against the RDI.
Cron-o-meter (https://cronometer.com/) is a popular recommendation, although requires a signup to use. It's mainly weight loss oriented, but has a fairly extensive database for tracking nutrients which is useful to anybody trying to balance a healthy diet.

And this goes for anybody out there, but you are also welcome to post about your diet on our forums for practical science based feedback and advice at:

https://theveganatheist.com/forum/

A number of people have already, and we do our best to give anybody feedback on good or bad dietary habits, including recipe suggestions based on their lifestyles and preferences.

Also, please check out the veganstrategist article which explores some of the topics mentioned in the podcast in more dept:

http://veganstrategist.org/2015/08/29/h ... am-harris/

No doubt you've been inundated already, but thank you for watching if you have, and again, thank you for your intellectual honesty and courage to ask for help.
You're an inspiration to us all.

[brimstoneSalad]

I'm trying to edit this down:


To Sam Harris: Idiot proofing veganism

Sam, thank you for your intellectual honesty, and your willingness to learn and change.

First, please see Unnatural Vegan's excellent summary of basic vegan nutrition here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_2ymmvW5w

This video will extend on that, and we won't repeat most of her excellent advice.

As to the idea that we don't understand human health and nutrition particularly well, this is a common misconception.

No credible nutritionist or doctor disagrees that the standard American diet is unhealthy, or that properly planned vegan diets can be nutritionally complete. It is non-controversial that well planned vegan diets can be healthy. It's also non-controversial that a poorly planned diet can be dangerous.

What seems like controversy from a layman's perspective isn't really science; it's the swirling cesspool of fad diets and pseudoscience that is fed to the public through television and other media.
That's the real embarrassment.

From a layman's perspective of neuroscience, the same controversy regarding the existence of mind-body duality, ESP, or telekinesis may seem to be embroiling our institutions.
As you know, that's not the case no matter what ill conceived television shows and documentaries on so called science or discovery channels may claim.

It's the same issue with nutrition; the trick is to be informed enough to sort out the hokum from the actual science. It's no easy task for a layman. Here are three key points to look for, as a sort of litmus test of credibility:

1. Anybody who advises in any way against B-12 supplementation for vegan diets should not be regarded as credible, period.

2. Anybody who appeals to our "natural diet", or ancestral diet, or evolution as an argument for a certain way of eating should be suspect; this includes everything from "paleo" to "starch solution". We have a better grasp on nutrition than our ancestors did, and access to higher quality food stuffs. What they ate is irrelevant to what we should eat today, so anybody fixating on anthropology is barking up the wrong tree.

3. Anybody who claims to be skeptical of the effect of cholesterol and saturated fat on heart disease should really be laughed off the stage today. The lipid hypothesis has been the scientific consensus for about thirty years, and really isn't controversial in medicine, despite being the most popular scientific finding to criticize in fad diet circles. Tell people a bacοn diet will solve all of their problems, and you will be sure to sell books, but also sure to kill people with bad advice much like the anti-vaccine movement. There's no science to the pro-saturated fat and cholesterol movement, and the studies most commonly cited don't actually support the claims being made in favor of it.

Plant Positive has an excellent breakdown of just one of the unethical publications that attempts to twist data in support of its conclusions:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a-Tx9dCbv-g

The real debate in nutrition swirls around what ideal nutrition is, and the extent to which different dietary components may be more or less healthy or unhealthy. That's a very complicated topic that is outside the scope of this video.
It also raises the important question of what "ideal" nutrition really means.

If we're talking about longevity, attained by minimizing risk of the largest killers -- cancer, heart attack, and stroke -- then minimizing or eliminating most animal products -- particularly from tetrapods -- is important.

But not all plant products are blameless either -- tobacco for example. But also plant products too high in methionine or choline, or high in saturated fats like tropical oils, or with excessive Omega-6 vs. Omega-3. Empty calories in processed oils, high glycemic or high sugar foods including some fruit products like juice, or low fiber like many processed foods. Mycotoxins in some fungi, or improperly stored grains, or pretty much all peanuts. This could go on for pages.

Things become a lot more complicated when we start talking about what an ideal diet looks like, which is always going to be more speculative as we learn more.

Dr. Greger has an extensive series of videos covering nutrition topics and exploring optimal nutrition from a skeptical science based perspective. You may enjoy his work at nutritionfacts.org if you're interested in what the latest research has to say on the matter, which is always changing -- although not that drastically -- how we view the ideal diet.

PCRM is another great resource for evidence based approach to human health, and mitigating the leading preventable causes of heart disease and cancer.

But obtaining a reasonably healthy diet, or at least one not less healthy than the standard American diet, is a much simpler matter which Unnatural Vegan covered very well in her video.

To hedge your bets for a completely idiot proof vegan diet, as she mentioned, Oysters may be an option since they're probably not sentient. Rope grown oysters are more environmentally sustainable, and even if marginally sentient, are at least the least of evils when it comes to animal products.

But aside from that, it's very hard to 'idiot proof' veganism since there's no one single source of all macro nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. It's important to mix and match on a vegan diet.
There's always a way to mess it up if you're determined. But you aren't an idiot, and we have every confidence in your ability to be sensible.

If in doubt, visit a registered dietitian, not a general practitioner or family doctor, since most doctors are not trained in nutrition.

You can also use online tools to track your diet, and check macro and micro nutrients against the RDI.
Cron-o-meter (https://cronometer.com/) is a popular recommendation, although requires a signup. It's mainly weight loss oriented, but has a database for tracking nutrients which is useful to anybody trying to balance a healthy diet.

And this goes for anybody out there, but you are also welcome to post about your diet on our forums for practical science based feedback and advice at:

https://theveganatheist.com/forum/

A number of people have already, and we do our best to give anybody feedback on good or bad dietary habits, including recipe suggestions based on their lifestyles and preferences in terms of taste and convenience.

No doubt you've been inundated already, but thank you for watching if you have, and again, thank you for your intellectual honesty and courage to ask for help.
You're an inspiration to us all.

[knowledge is power]

That's amazing news! Honestly, I am not at all surprised. I have always admired him and thought of him as a very ethical person.

[EquALLity]

Wow, awesome!
I hope he inspires more people in the skeptic community to go vegan.

I think that the letter looks great.

Maybe mention that some multivitamins and fortified foods (I doubt supplements specifically for b-12) can be deceiving in that they have the full RDA of b-12, so they say '100% DV' or something, but the DV isn't actually enough. What the hell is up with that anyway?

Yep, that's insanely small. The fact that it doesn't even have 100% per serving is just obnoxious. B-12 is not expensive, nor is it dangerous to take a little extra. They're just trying to make people drink more expensive beverage. But the fact is that consumption at such low levels is not reliable; it depends on what you eat it with, your digestion, absorption, etc.

To put it into perspective, the typical daily B-12 lozenge has 1000mcg, which is 16,667% of the daily value.

I would not consider anything much less than 1,000% DV particularly meaningful as a source of B-12.

Wouldn't want Sam to become deficient because he is relying on two glasses of soymilk a day for b-12, or a deceiving multivitamin, or something.

[brimstoneSalad]

Unnatural Vegan covered B-12 amounts in hers, with those seven tips. 25 - 100 mcg a day. That's a decent amount. The minimum being ten times the DRI. If he follows those recommendations (even based on food labels) he should be fine.

It's when you get down to the mere DRI which is a problem.

This is interesting, though, which I didn't realize:

http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/rec

-In foods, B12 is measured in micrograms (aka "µg" or "mcg"). 1,000 µg = 1 mg.
-The DRI for vitamin B12 is 2.4 micrograms for adults.
-Fortified foods: Amounts listed on a nutrition label are based on 6 µg/day. For example, 25% of the Daily Value = .25 * 6 µg = 1.5 µg.

So, that's not as bad as I thought it was. Still not good to just get 100% based on that though.
If you get 1,000% DRI based on that amount in food, you should be fine. That would be a unreasonably large amount of soy milk though.

[bobo0100]

But obtaining a reasonably healthy diet, or at least one not less healthy than the standard American diet, is a much simpler matter which Unnatural Vegan covered very well in her video.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assuming 130 words per minuet, just over 8 minuets (http://www.speechinminutes.com/) at 1066 words.

[brimstoneSalad]

But obtaining a reasonably healthy diet, or at least one not less healthy than the standard American diet, is a much simpler matter which Unnatural Vegan covered very well in her video.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assuming 130 words per minuet, just over 8 minuets (http://www.speechinminutes.com/) at 1066 words.

Thanks, good catch.

How can we shorten it? Which parts are the least important?