Why so brainwashed?

[EquALLity]

Thanks for all the info!

Ah, so when you search 'beef nutrition' (or some other kind of meat), and it says 0 grams in the box to the right, it's not counting for all sugars?

So choline is only bad if you already have cancer, and is beneficial when you don't?

If someone rarely ate meat, and a lot of anti-carcinogenic vegetables, would they 'cancel-out' the carcinogens from the meat?

[brimstoneSalad]

Ah, so when you search 'beef nutrition' (or some other kind of meat), and it says 0 grams in the box to the right, it's not counting for all sugars?

They are chemically sugar. That doesn't mean they're available as free sugars nutritionally, but they may be available for chemical reactions under heat. Fiber is also a long chain of sugars (that we can't digest) [meat contains no fiber]. Whether they will react as such depends on the strength of the molecular bonds in those compounds, and whether there are enzymes to help break them down (in many cases, these sugars are locked away and won't react, but this is another possible source). It doesn't take much.

Anyway, as far as nutrition facts go, that only means that there's less than 1 gram (maybe less than 0.5 grams, to round down) per 100 grams. You can't assume there's nothing of something in something because it says 0 grams; it just means it rounds down.

That's a particularly big problem for trans-fats, which are terrible for you, but companies will often advertise that something has 0 grams of trans-fat per serving (say, a 10 gram serving), when it actually has a lot of trans fat in it and it just rounds down with such a small serving. You can kill yourself by eating "0 grams" of poison pretty easily. The devil is in the significant figures.

So choline is only bad if you already have cancer, and is beneficial when you don't?

It's not so much an "if" question.

It only promotes the spread and growth (apparently) of cancer once it has become cancer, although this is an event that's pretty common in the body; we get cancer now and then, and are lucky enough that the cells die or are killed by our immune systems, or just grow slowly enough in a contained place that they don't spread from. The issue is that such an occurrence is very common. The vast majority of men, for example, will develop prostate cancer in their lifetimes. Those who aren't killed by it will die of heart attacks before that kills them.

Even if you were immune to cancer somehow (nobody is), there's still the TMAO that promotes heart disease.

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/carniti ... transcript

It's produced by gut bacteria, so any regular consumption of animal products, or other very dense sources of choline, would promote it.

If someone rarely ate meat, and a lot of anti-carcinogenic vegetables, would they 'cancel-out' the carcinogens from the meat?

You can't completely mitigate a risk like that. The question is whether something is likely to kill you, or whether you'll more likely die from something else first.

It's never good or harmless to eat something so unhealthy.

You'd be better off eating all of the vegetables, and not eating the meat at all.

Otherwise, it's like wearing a bullet proof vest to reduce your chance of dying from bullets, and then playing Russian roulette and estimating that they cancel each other out.

Doing something harmful less often is better than doing it more often. But doing it not at all is even better.

[EquALLity]

That's a particularly big problem for trans-fats, which are terrible for you, but companies will often advertise that something has 0 grams of trans-fat per serving (say, a 10 gram serving), when it actually has a lot of trans fat in it and it just rounds down with such a small serving. You can kill yourself by eating "0 grams" of poison pretty easily. The devil is in the significant figures.

Oh yeah, I read about that.

It's not so much an "if" question.

What do you mean? I was using if interchangeably with 'when' there.

The vast majority of men, for example, will develop prostate cancer in their lifetimes. Those who aren't killed by it will die of heart attacks before that kills them.

Here it says about 1 in 7 are diagnosed: http://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostateca ... statistics
I had no idea it was that common, but that's not most men. So lots of men get it but aren't diagnosed? How do you know?

Do most women get breast cancer?

I'll check out that link after I finish writing this.

It's never good or harmless to eat something so unhealthy.

I wasn't thinking it was, I was just wondering about this specific situation. I just want to be prepared when I use this as an argument in the future.

You'd be better off eating all of the vegetables, and not eating the meat at all.

Yes, I know. That question wasn't me contemplating eating meat again, and doing it occasionally (just for the record).

I just want to be equipped for debates with meat-eaters when I use this as a reason for them to go vegan.

[brimstoneSalad]

What do you mean? I was using if interchangeably with 'when' there.

People get abnormal cells all of the time. If these nutrients promote the growth and spread of abnormal cells more so than ordinary cells, they are buttressing those random and frequent abnormal cell lines as they occur, and increasing the probability of one becoming a lethal cancer.

There's a strong link between choline and cancer, apparently. It may turn out to be cancer food, to put it simply.

Here it says about 1 in 7 are diagnosed: http://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostateca ... statistics
I had no idea it was that common, but that's not most men. So lots of men get it but aren't diagnosed? How do you know?

Autopsies. About 80% of men by age 80.

I wasn't thinking it was, I was just wondering about this specific situation. I just want to be prepared when I use this as an argument in the future.

The important thing is to look at why and how a thing is harmful.

For example, a little bit of cyanide is fine; it's moderated by B-12 in the body. After it reacts, it forms cyanocobalamin, which is then reacted with again by some enzyme to pull off the cyanide which is removed from the body by kidneys quite easily, leaving you with free B-12 again.

Taking cyanocobalamin is basically cyanide-neutral. Pure B-12 as hydroxycobalamin is like negative cyanide (and can treat cyanide poisoning).

If Cyanide consumption exceeds the free B-12 in your body, then you start to have a problem as it binds to the enzymes responsible for oxygen metabolism in cells. This can cause cell death, particularly in nerve cells that rely on aerobic metabolism. Nerve cell death isn't cancer, but it is BAD because nerves regenerate very slowly. You want to keep your rate of nerve cell death very low, or you'll start to experience neurological symptoms through chronic exposure.

Cyanide is non-carcinogenic, and as far as I know, Cyanide actually kills cancer rather than promoting its growth. So, there's nothing about cyanide that should promote or cause cancer in any way. Just keep exposure within reasonable limits, and it should be harmless.

Anyway, that's an example of something that's lethal in large amounts, but harmless in a small amount, and specifically why it's harmless in those amounts. That's the case for a lot of substances. It's not the case for carcinogens.

It depends on the details of the biochemistry, and how your body deals with them.

So, it is true that if you take cyanide and pure (hydroxy) B-12 at the same time, the cyanide would be mitigated perfectly, because the B-12 is its exact method of mitigation and binds with it to prevent its action on cells.

Not so true with carcinogens and anti-oxidants (which are the anti-cancer substances in plants). Carcinogens operate by different mechanisms. Antioxidants mostly just reduce common free radicals in the body, and may not interfere with the mutagenic properties of potent carcinogens.

The analogy I used of wearing a bullet proof vest and playing Russian roulette is more accurate. A bullet proof vest protects you somewhat from *other* sources of bullets, but does nothing to defend against the gun you've put to your head. Likewise, eating antioxidants from plants mainly defends against other causes of cancer. Your net odds may more or less even out, just like they might if you wore a bullet poor vest in a war zone and played Russian roulette. But you're not directly mitigating the source of danger you introduced yourself to -- just other comparable sources of danger.

I just want to be equipped for debates with meat-eaters when I use this as a reason for them to go vegan.

Well, the best argument is ethics. People do all sorts of stupid self-destructive things.

The best argument to atheists, who believe themselves to be rational, is probably to point out the irrationality of lose-lose behavior.

[EquALLity]

There's a strong link between choline and cancer, apparently. It may turn out to be cancer food, to put it simply.

Ah. I see it's mostly just in animal products, but in some soy things too.
(http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000 ... 00-1w.html)

But wait, here you said:

Soy Lecithin contains a large amount of Choline, which is very healthy for you. A lot of people take Lecithin as a nutritional supplement for this reason.

Autopsies. About 80% of men by age 80.

It actually says by 70 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostate_cancer
Wow, that's pretty surprising. I didn't know cancer was that common.

The analogy I used of wearing a bullet proof vest and playing Russian roulette is more accurate. A bullet proof vest protects you somewhat from *other* sources of bullets, but does nothing to defend against the gun you've put to your head. Likewise, eating antioxidants from plants mainly defends against other causes of cancer. Your net odds may more or less even out, just like they might if you wore a bullet poor vest in a war zone and played Russian roulette. But you're not directly mitigating the source of danger you introduced yourself to -- just other comparable sources of danger.

I see.

Well, the best argument is ethics. People do all sorts of stupid self-destructive things.

Ok, but I want to have as many arguments as I can up my sleeve.
This will also be useful when meat-eaters say veganism is unhealthy.

[brimstoneSalad]

There's a strong link between choline and cancer, apparently. It may turn out to be cancer food, to put it simply.

Ah. I see it's mostly just in animal products, but in some soy things too.
(http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000 ... 00-1w.html)

But wait, here you said:

Soy Lecithin contains a large amount of Choline, which is very healthy for you. A lot of people take Lecithin as a nutritional supplement for this reason.

Apparently, choline is good for you AND bad for you, for different reasons and in different amounts/packages.

Choline is in almost everything, but the most concentrated sources are animal products, and concentrated lecithin.

As it turns out, those concentrated sources (lecithin) are probably a bad idea as a supplement unless (maybe) you're pregnant, since we're learning that getting more choline than you actually need has some serious drawbacks due to gut microbes turning it into TMA (and it becomming TMAO in the body).

Although I wouldn't worry too much about the minute quantities used in chocolate or vegenaise, etc. as an emulsifier. There are other reasons to avoid those (tropical fats/large amounts of oils respectively).

I found this breakdown:

http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/choline

Based on that information, Jack Norris recommends getting 300 mg a day. Seems reasonable, and relatively easy to achieve on a vegan diet.

The Adequate Intake for Choline was apparently set unreasonably high at some point due to inadequate information on how much choline people actually need, and because the large range of genetic variation for choline needs.

There may be a critical concentration needed to cause these effects (exceeding the body's ability to absorb it earlier in the digestive tract, and leaving it for the bacteria). It's something likely harder to do with non-concentrated sources as found in plants, but easy to do with eggs, meat, or concentrated lecithin as a supplement.

Including eggs as any meaningful part of the diet (even a single egg a day), unless they were evenly mixed in with all of your food, and the rest of your diet was designed to be deficient in choline (which would be a very BAD idea, since the foods particularly deficient in choline are also going to be junk food for the most part), they would would quickly surpass that level of needed/absorbed choline and increase cancer risk without offering commensurate nutritional benefit.

It may turn out that the best way to get extra Choline if you're after those purported benefits is to inject it, to bypass digestion.
If one were particularly keen on it, one could retrofit an insulin pump.

However, that only bypasses TMAO production, and ignores the other unfortunate implication that we are learning: That Choline itself, while good for you and essential for cell growth, maybe be even better for cancer cells than it is for your own health. Cancer food.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14523987

Old news, of course. But something I wasn't keenly aware of until relatively recently. It could explain a large part of the link between animal foods and cancer.

It might be compared with how excess Iron in the body promotes bacterial infection.

Autopsies. About 80% of men by age 80.
It actually says by 70 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostate_cancer
Wow, that's pretty surprising. I didn't know cancer was that common.

Autopsy studies of Chinese, German, Israeli, Jamaican, Swedish, and Ugandan men who died of other causes have found prostate cancer in 30% of men in their 50s, and in 80% of men in their 70s.

More than 80% of men will develop prostate cancer by the age of 80.

Almost everybody gets cancer. It's just a question of whether that will kill them first, or if something else will.

A a vegan, you will probably die ten to twenty years later by cancer, rather than ten to twenty years earlier by heart disease. That is, with current medical technology, anyway.

[EquALLity]

^I see.

Speaking of cancer and current medical technology, did you happen to catch 'VICE Special Report: Killing Cancer' tonight? It just came out, and it was really awesome. You should search that in your DVR and record it or something if you haven't seen it.

[Jebus]

Repression, as you say, is denial. It is denying the contradiction, denying and thereafter avoiding certain facts. It's motivated by cognitive dissonance; it's not an alternative to it.

Yes. I agree with this.

In response to your other question: Yes, I believe that you have at times overstated the importance of CD. I had the impression that you believed that CD always leads to action to avoid or remove the CD. Although this is true in cases where the cognitions are strong and isolated, there are many cases where the CD only brings about a slight annoyance. I can speak from experience regarding the non-vegan girlfriend example. CD was present and it motivated me to try to change her non-vegan behavior, but as she had other qualities that I valued it didn't motivate me enough to end the relationship.

[brimstoneSalad]

I had the impression that you believed that CD always leads to action to avoid or remove the CD.

Not necessarily immediate action, more of a gradual nagging force that depends on how often it comes up, and how strongly people feel about something. E.g. if somebody doesn't feel strongly about veganism, and practices it for "personal" reasons but doesn't care that others eat meat and doesn't consider meat-eating to be morally wrong, it doesn't pose a big problem. Likewise, if somebody is in a relationship but doesn't take it seriously -- more along the lines of "fuck buddies", or something casual which isn't very emotionally intimate, it doesn't pose much of a problem either. The closer a relationship grows, and the more somebody cares about veganism, the more of an issue it is.

I can speak from experience regarding the non-vegan girlfriend example. CD was present and it motivated me to try to change her non-vegan behavior, but as she had other qualities that I valued it didn't motivate me enough to end the relationship.

You say was. Is the relationship ongoing, and is she still a carnist?

[brimstoneSalad]

^I see.

Speaking of cancer and current medical technology, did you happen to catch 'VICE Special Report: Killing Cancer' tonight? It just came out, and it was really awesome. You should search that in your DVR and record it or something if you haven't seen it.

I think I'm up to date on current research.

Can you summarize it?