Nature VS Modern Medicine and weeding out what truly works.

[Ivy]

I've heard it said that GMO is the left's climate change. Sure seems that way.

 

[kyuuei]

I've heard it said that GMO is the left's climate change. Sure seems that way.

Don't get me wrong, Monsanto is a huge greed beast of epic proportions or whatever, but I think GMOs got a terrible rep because it's associated with greedy assholes more-so than being super destructive.

And the thing about labeling GMO foods is, it doesn't really benefit the people that don't philosophically care about GMOs in their food, and the ones that DO care wouldn't trust anything with a GMO label next to it. They're far more likely to reach for a non-gmo whole foods can than a GMO anything. So why even bother? They know if it doesn't say Non-GMO it's bad for them. So why not keep the system like it is? Giving people who care the labels they need? Why bother when you know they aren't more likely to reach for anything without a non-gmo label already?

And that's not even getting into a philosophical debate on what you consider messing with genetics, because technically carrots, and potatoes, and tomatoes, and all of that are waaaaaaay different than they were in medieval times.

Carrots Used to Be Purple Before the 17th Century

The fear mongering just ends up getting tiring.
A great video. OBVIOUSLY it's VERY bias, and not an objective scientific investigation, so no hippies getting their panties in a wad.

Also, I like how sneaky these anti-GMO people are. "Oh, they like this show called Bullshit! I want them to see the REAL bullshit that is GMO, so I'm going to label my Religious-driven material as the show.hahhahaha. That'll teach them. And I'll unsuspectingly educate them on the REAL danger. I'll trick them into the truth!"

Random facts about carrots from the site I linked earlier that are super cool:

When cultivation of the garden style orange carrot lapses for a few generations, the carrots revert back to their ancestral carrot types, which are very different from the current garden variety.

In ancient times, the root part of the carrot plant that we eat today was not typically used. The carrot plant however was highly valued due to the medicinal value of its seeds and leaves. For instance, Mithridates VI, King of Pontius (around 100BC) had a recipe for counteracting certain poisons with the principle ingredient being carrot seeds. It has since been proven that this concoction actually works.

The Romans believed carrots and their seeds were aphrodisiacs. As such, carrots were a common plant found in Roman gardens. After the fall of Rome however, carrot cultivation in Europe more or less stopped until around the 10th century when Arabs reintroduced them to Europe.

British gunners in WWII were able to locate and shoot down German planes at night due to radar. What does this have to do with carrots? To cover up significant advancements the Allies made in radar technology at the time, and the extreme effectiveness of radar that resulted, the British spread about an urban legend that said that they massively increased the night vision of their pilots by having them consume large amounts of carrots. This lie not only convinced the Germans, but also had a bonus effect of causing many British people to start planting their own vegetable gardens, including planting carrots. This urban legend has persisted even to this day.

The Vegetable Improvement Center at Texas A&M recently developed a purple-skinned, orange fleshed carrot called the Beta Sweet. This carrot is specialized to include substances that prevent cancer. It also has extremely high beta-carotene content.

 

[kyuuei]

I'll go ahead and shove these in here too.

 

[Ivy]

A lot of that Monsanto stuff is mythology, I think. I used to be on the "Monsanto sucks" train too but it didn't really stand up once I started researching it in unbiased sources. The whole "suing farmers for cross-pollination" thing is way overblown- the most famous case of this, the farmer was actually found to be growing a crop of almost 100% Roundup Ready plants. That doesn't happen by accident.

Can We Trust Monsanto with Our Food? - Scientific American
Top Five Myths Of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted : The Salt : NPR

 

[kyuuei]

A lot of that Monsanto stuff is mythology, I think. I used to be on the "Monsanto sucks" train too but it didn't really stand up once I started researching it in unbiased sources. The whole "suing farmers for cross-pollination" thing is way overblown- the most famous case of this, the farmer was actually found to be growing a crop of almost 100% Roundup Ready plants. That doesn't happen by accident.

Can We Trust Monsanto with Our Food? - Scientific American
Top Five Myths Of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted : The Salt : NPR

It isn't the farmer thing, or the GMO thing that I dislike Monsanto for.. I have a particular aversion to anything that played a part in making substances like agent orange. On top of that, they profit loads and loads, and put a lot of zero into making an image for the American people. They pretty much asked for their evil crown of thorns with that. They took the "we've got science on our side, so meh what those uneducated people think." but it's those uneducated people you need to convince more than anything.

People already hate big corporations. For various, and sometimes valid, reasons.

A LOT of the issues, I feel, stemming from GMO fear mongering, and unnecessarily causing a lot of hoopla are stemming from Monsanto being lazy assholes using their money for profit, gains, and developing more. Which is fine as a business model--but as a large company trying to make food available to all people? You need an image. Instead of taking time to not FIGHT legislation alone, they needed to promote the reasons behind the fight more. They can do all good things the rest of ever, and clean up all the ocean spills (they probably should do that anyways and fund that kids invention or something) and no one would care by this point. They've done a lot of self-defeating with all of this. They're still growing, they've taken in more than enough revenue, with that sort of money I could turn myself into the second coming of Mother Teresa. They should shine real light in an informed, but digestible way, that creates not such an us-vs-them image. Turn the fear mongers into the crazy religious fanatics they tend to be. They stayed in their lairs, and continued their schemes, and made incredible products--and then heavily helped label those products as evil by simply not showing off that they're good and leaving that to literally anyone else.

So now we have non-GMO people going bananas and trying to scare everyone into thinking they're feeding their kids poison because they can't afford non-GMO food because to them it's not an ideal choice. I find very few non-GMO people don't 100% swear off EVERY SINGLE thing that's GMO.. but they'll still make outlandish claims about GMOs. If something was poisonous, I think those guys would be more dedicated to swearing it off, and having non-GMO food drives for poor people who don't have money for it and all that mess.... But the privilege of being able to eat what you want is a whole other story...

The Post-GMO Economy - Modern Farmer

Bloom says, noting that seed dealers work on commission. DuPont Pioneer, for example, offers him a non-GMO corn for $180 a bag, while Wyffels Hybrids sold the same for $115 a bag last year.

Why does Pioneer charge so much? Because it doesn’t want lower-priced conventional seed to lure customers away from GMOs. Bloom says a company dealer confessed: “We don’t want our farmers to buy it.”

They aren't the GMO assholes people make them out to be, but denying they are a corporation and some tom fuckery is going to happen isn't really the right call either.

When you don't leave the decision up to farmers, and the people, everyone loses. Put the facts out there, the pros and cons, let the farmers, buyers, etc. decide for themselves. I could see legislation saying, "Hey, if you're considered a health-food-store you need to label things that are non-GMO so people can tell." I don't see walmart having to do that, that isn't really their demographic. But when companies like Monsanto throw money like rice at a wedding trying to stop ALL labeling, instead of trying to tweak the idea back into, it just doesn't look good. And I get why they're trying to stop it. I do. They wanna make money, and it's unnecessary legislation to appease the masses. But they should have been appeasing the masses in other ways long ago.

 

[Thalassa]

I still have questions on the GMO debate, and frankly I find it silly that people are so offended by non GMO or organic campaigns, but never once questioned the aggression of dairy campaigns or beef and pork campaigns...why? Just because you grew up with it? People need to question their own biases, not just the bias of thine enemy. It bears pointing out too that GMO should upset fundamentalist Christians just as much as homosexuality, because in Leviticus it warns against cross breeding crops and animals right next to frowning on gays. Something to ponder, because hey the Jews actually were right about pork.

Anyhoo, my last contribution to this thread is to recommend you take an unbiased look at two recent documentaries: the best one is Forks Over Knives, but Milk? is a pretty unbiased comprehensive look at all sides.

 

[kyuuei]

I still have questions on the GMO debate, and frankly I find it silly that people are so offended by non GMO or organic campaigns, but never once questioned the aggression of dairy campaigns or beef and pork campaigns...why? Just because you grew up with it? People need to question their own biases, not just the bias of thine enemy. It bears pointing out too that GMO should upset fundamentalist Christians just as much as homosexuality, because in Leviticus it warns against cross breeding crops and animals right next to frowning on gays. Something to ponder, because hey the Jews actually were right about pork.

Anyhoo, my last contribution to this thread is to recommend you take an unbiased look at two recent documentaries: the best one is Forks Over Knives, but Milk? is a pretty unbiased comprehensive look at all sides.

I think the aggressiveness of the non-GMO campaigns are what really do it for me. I honestly don't care--I like both styles honestly, I think we need that dynamic because it creates variety in the marketplace and there's definitely room for both cowboys here. But the messages are usually really, really dark. It isn't, "Hey, non-GMO is great. The seeds are cheaper for farmers, you know what you're getting. Return to your roots. *rainbow*" It's more like "Did you know you're eating pretty much evil poison? Yeah. You are. Cut that shit out. Everytime you eat a GMO carrot baby kittens get one of their eyes poked out. And they only have two.. Well, one now, asshole."

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

First milk commercial that came up for me. Positive message, outlandish, as commercials tend to go, standard old message: milk will make you strong so drink up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuUit86ILaU

Had trouble even finding a commercial, but most of the videos that showed up were pretty much this. "Lets show you how evil this shit is, and how much of an uneducated asshole you've been to think that squirrels are smarter than you are. Stop being such a moron and killing yourself and your family with your so-called food." When you fear monger, people either panic, or think you're full of it and ignore you because the message is offensive instead of uplifting. And that posh, uppity attitude that comes with the message is why people are turned off to it. No one really gives a shit if don't like milk. People REALLY care if you're for GMO products though.



On to what I came here to post about. The articles are a little old, but I just remembered them from a while back via a facebook redate (I dunno what to call those.. updates that are actually old stuff hashed up as if it's new?) posted today.

Vegan Nursing Mom's Baby Dies From Malnutrition | Parenting

Basically: The mom was fully vegan, and was vitamin deficient, and instead of taking caution of her baby's low birth weight (which is overwhelmingly a determinant of if your baby is doing well health wise and will continue to be the gold standard for if your baby is developing well or not) long before it was an issue, by the time she called for help the baby had passed away. Her vegan diet didn't provide her body the nutrients it needed because she was probably eating it wrong, and thus didn't provide any nutrient for the baby to survive either..

Vegan Mom Sarah Markham Faces Criminal Charges Over Underweight Baby

As much as I hate the huffington post, there's a hundred websites with this everywhere anyways. Basically the mother was uncooperative, supposedly gave her baby soy formula (but who knows in actuality), and used the I'm vegan card to play off her guilt as being neglectful as a mother. The media's super spinning this as a vegan vs non thing, because that's the card she's playing for her innocence, but the truth is she didn't follow doctor orders and she could have requested vegan-friendly food for her child at the hospital. Hospitals have the means to do that stuff. The case was really about whether she was neglectful of her son or not.

Vegan mom Sarah Markham regains custody of son Caleb | Daily Mail Online

The judge decided no, but losing 10% of body mass is really really bad for a kid. Saying, "fuck you doctor, you're a quack, I know what's best for my baby" without evidence that the doctor's just being an asshole is just the wrong answer. And this hippy religious stuff really irks me. That kid might not have been hurt right then or anything, but he certainly needed medical attention, and clearly the doctors were in the right to report that the child was not being treated to CPS. The mother's dad is all, 'Oh, the doctor just didn't like her challenging him.' No, clearly the kid was dehydrated and that's a critical amount of weight loss to pay attention to.. and all the doc could see was a mom that said, "yeah, I know you told me he needs medical attention, but I don't care." He was right to make the call even if the case was dismissed. Better safe than sorry.

No, the court isn't going to just make a kid disappear because the mom is a vegan, but the clear stipulation that she needed to collaborate with a nutritionist certainly shows she didn't know how to use her vegan diet appropriately with her child.

It takes a lot of education actually and effort to balance nutrients in a vegan diet for an infant. It's not an easy task. People think if you just eat enough fruits and vegetables you'll be free of all the bad things in health. Everything is balance. You take away an entire variety of food in your diet, you need to try extra hard to balance of the other weights on the scale again. The more options you take away, the more balancing acts you need to perform.

 

[kyuuei]

Girl Can't Be Forced to Have Chemo, Court Rules | abc13.com

Really annoying story. I get it, it's all super religious or whatever. But when religions and beliefs are writing death sentences for children it's really fucking annoying.

And on top of that, stopping chemo abruptly means they wiped out some--but then have an opportunity for more stubborn cells of the cancer to survive and proliferate. And clearly they weren't against the idea of chemo originally, they DID it at first, so it isn't a stark Jehova's Witness 'Nope, that's clearly here in the rules' situation. Ridic.

 

[Tellenbach]

Really annoying story. I get it, it's all super religious or whatever. But when religions and beliefs are writing death sentences for children it's really fucking annoying.

I think the parents made the wrong choice since leukemia is one of the more treatable cancers around. I can understand if it were pancreatic cancer or liver cancer which have low (under 20%) five year survival rates.

I do agree with the court decision. I don't think anyone should be forced to undergo an expensive medical procedure against their will. We don't like to think of healthcare as an economic transaction, but that's what it is. You have to pay someone to get a service. The government shouldn't be in the position to force a person to spend thousands or tens of thousands on a procedure they don't want. If the government does force someone to undergo a medical procedure, then the government should pay for it.

 

[kyuuei]

I think the parents made the wrong choice since leukemia is one of the more treatable cancers around. I can understand if it were pancreatic cancer or liver cancer which have low (under 20%) five year survival rates.

I do agree with the court decision. I don't think anyone should be forced to undergo an expensive medical procedure against their will. We don't like to think of healthcare as an economic transaction, but that's what it is. You have to pay someone to get a service. The government shouldn't be in the position to force a person to spend thousands or tens of thousands on a procedure they don't want. If the government does force someone to undergo a medical procedure, then the government should pay for it.

It's a gray area. How do you define abuse of a child? Denying her life because of your beliefs? Being forced to get medical treatment--if parents suddenly decide they don't believe in the science of PKU syndrome and feed their baby breast milk and basically poison the baby with it because they think it's natural and thus better, are they abusing their child and denying the child life-sustaining materials and turning it into a literal retard for selfish foolish reasons, or are they adults making religious and cultural decisions? If you know a diabetes type 1 child needs insulin, and parents are denying their child insulin because they don't believe in modern medical procedures and think an all natural diet without sugars at all is better, even though there is outstanding proof that insulin will save that child's life, what do you do? Because I think here, for most parents, they'd be neglect/abusively labeled if that happened, and the child would be taken from them. But for cancer there's that 'what if' gray box, so there's more "oh, but what if.." "Oh, but chemo.." 10% is a very, very low failure rate for cancer. That specific leukemia is one of the few that we do VERY well on treating and eliminating. The children still have health problems because it is an immunity cancer, but overall they get to live. Much longer than without treatment. If it wasn't cancer and it was a more established medical disorder like PKU intolerances or diabetes, the parents would have been labeled neglectful right off the bat. I understand autonomy over medical care, and like you said it'd be different if it was a 50/50 chance, or a low survival rate chance, etc. But this is a very specific type of cancer that has a very high success rate with treatment. Extremely high. I don't think many, if almost any, cancers match it in terms of survivability right now.

And the thing is, the child doesn't even get a say. They aren't old enough, or wise enough, to make their own decisions, but I'm sure most children don't want to pick a decision that'll nearly guarantee a death either. And that kid doesn't even get a say in whether they live or die here. They haven't even had real time to develop their own decisions about culture, and religion, etc. And that's the part that really kills me about it.

I could see an adult complaining about not being able to have autonomy over their own life. And I can see a woman complaining about not having autonomy over her own body. But, once a child is born, there should be a ratio of, "I don't care what you think or believe, that shit isn't science and this kid is going to die if we don't do this." The whole idea behind abortion haters is to protect the child's life. The a major idea behind immunization supporters is protecting children. CPS, screening tests, mandatory laws for screening for diseases, mandatory procedures, etc. etc. They're all there to protect children. I don't see why cancer is something sorely neglected in that area. If the survival rate is about 70% with treatment, children should have a right to try for living and surviving. Cancer is as old as life itself, and has been around forever, and will be around forever. That's how it goes. So, I doubt natural medicine has the power in and of itself to cure cancer. I think holistic approaches are best, and natural medicine has a huge factor in PREVENTING cancer and helping with treatments, but preventing and helping are the key words there. Once it's there... modern medicine far surpasses.

(The government, btw, does pay for children unless the parents are stupid rich (and I suspect they are fairly well off being able to just pick up and go to florida like that, but either way). I don't know how it works in Canada, but they're more progressive than Texas is for sure, so I can't imagine that the parents were just out 10s of thousands.)




And people and parents are fooled by natural cancer healing claims all the time. It's a sad, gut wrenching thing.

Naturopathic Medicine

Available scientific evidence does not support claims that naturopathic medicine can cure cancer or any other disease, since virtually no studies on naturopathy as a whole have been published. The individual methods used by naturopathic medicine vary in their effectiveness. Homeopathy, for instance, has been shown in studies to be of little value. Other naturopathic methods have been shown to help in prevention and symptom management. Examples include diet for lowering the risk of severe illnesses such as heart disease and cancer and counseling, relaxation, and herbs to help reduce anxiety.

Basically what I said. Prevention? Yeah, all day it helps. Helping treatments? Yes, of course. Curing cancer? Nope.

Raw Vegan Forever: Why Going Raw Cures Cancer, and what else can be done...

Yet people will go make bold claims like this--yes, the same immune system that is cancerous in that kid can cure cancer. Because that makes sense.

There is
not only a cure for cancer but there is also a way to prevent cancer
from taking over a healthy body. The cure is called the immune
system.

If you youtube "raw food cures cancer" you'll get a whole slew of videos of people claiming cancer disappeared with just raw food. They'll claim FDA or evil doctors or Obama or whoever they feel like blaming for their lifestyle before raw food, but they just stopped cooking and boom they're all better. No sweat.

The particular voice on one of the voice overs, the one talking about money, is a guy that puts out cult CDs and I only happen to know because I recognize his voice from when we visited a geodesic dome in NC and were given a CD to listen to to expand our knowledge of light healing or whatever it was. It was like an hour and a half of pure rambling. He says like that exact line.

Claiming raw food alone cures cancer is invalidating, and very frustrating, for people who actually survive cancer, are dying from cancer, and being treated for it. It's VERY easy for healthy people to say this or that will work. Soo easy. Just do this! Silly!

Would I switch to a super healthy diet if I had cancer? Absolutely I would. Would that include raw foods? Probably not, I have an allergy to most raw fruit (which drive raw foodies BANANAS every time I tell them I'm allergic to their miracle cure for everything), but would I do everything in my power to try at least to tip the 50/50 scale? Yeah, sure, unless it was 100% terminal I would. It gives comfort, a sense of control, and a feeling that you're doing your best for yourself and others. But does raw food cure cancer? I say no.

Simply Raw: Making overcooked claims about raw food diets « Science-Based Medicine

 

[Tellenbach]

And the thing is, the child doesn't even get a say. They aren't old enough, or wise enough, to make their own decisions, but I'm sure most children don't want to pick a decision that'll nearly guarantee a death either. And that kid doesn't even get a say in whether they live or die here.

I would change this; it's unlikely a child will go against the wishes of the parents, but the court should hear directly from the child before deciding.

If it wasn't cancer and it was a more established medical disorder like PKU intolerances or diabetes, the parents would have been labeled neglectful right off the bat.

Absolutely, but this is about cancer.

Available scientific evidence does not support claims that naturopathic medicine can cure cancer or any other disease, since virtually no studies on naturopathy as a whole have been published.

I liked your post up to this point. The reason why there isn't much evidence on alternative approaches is because the orthodox medical establishment refuses to do the studies on them. I've mentioned the controversy with Vitamin C already. It's cheap, it kills cancer in vitro and we know how it kills cancer cells. There are positive studies from multiple sources but these are not randomly controlled studies. One has to wonder why the establishment refuses to examine such a promising treatment (I'm referring to intravenous administration of Vitamin C.).

The establishment similarly screwed up in its examination of laetrile, Burzynski's antineoplastons, etc, etc. The few alternative approaches that have been looked at have been subjected to the most embarrassing incompetence around.

 

[kyuuei]

Absolutely, but this is about cancer.

Yeah, I don't think there is a single aspect of that disease that is at all black and white. Everything is gray, and complex, and difficult. Very harsh disease.

I liked your post up to this point. The reason why there isn't much evidence on alternative approaches is because the orthodox medical establishment refuses to do the studies on them. I've mentioned the controversy with Vitamin C already. It's cheap, it kills cancer in vitro and we know how it kills cancer cells. There are positive studies from multiple sources but these are not randomly controlled studies. One has to wonder why the establishment refuses to examine such a promising treatment (I'm referring to intravenous administration of Vitamin C.).

The establishment similarly screwed up in its examination of laetrile, Burzynski's antineoplastons, etc, etc. The few alternative approaches that have been looked at have been subjected to the most embarrassing incompetence around.

I don't think that's quite true, studies have shown many natural medicines (like diet, exercise, etc.) at its very core to be overwhelmingly supported. But details in particular? A single thing, like vitamin C? That's where it gets hazy. There is a ton of research out there for vitamin C, but the results are confused and not decided. Meaning that despite putting money towards it, we don't know much more than we did before. Saying one single thing helps x is really hard and impossible to say--and natural medicine sort of acknowledges this itself in its positive tones by saying all the things it could potentially do. Antiviral, antifungal, antibiotic, good for bones, good for hair, good for the spleen, etc.etc. There are laundry lists that are seemingly endless for advertisements. And that's because there's no concise thing pinpointing, yes, this does work. I'm not totally sold on Vitamin C being the main contributor of recovering from a cold, but I don't deny that I use it when I think I could be getting one either. Natural medicine is designed to be overall helpful--so pinpointing what it can do and cannot do isn't an easy task in and of itself. Then setting up an objective amount of research? Difficult. Placebo effects are everywhere as well.

Do I think more research should be thrown towards potentially cheaper medicines like vitamin C and such? Sure. I'm all for more research. But it isn't like natural medicine proponents are asking for research either. They aren't necessarily the ones demanding the money. They feel it works whether there will be research or not. And that attitude is reflected in the money as well. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and no one is taking aspirin to control their heart symptoms without overwhelming evidence that it helps because it's a man made medicine that has serious potential side effects. Taking honey to help with allergies? Well, that doesn't seem to hurt even if it doesn't work, so people are less eager to get real results from objective assessments. Bee keepers sell honey whether it works or not, so they aren't screaming for results. There isn't much drive in the whole system asking for tons of natural studies to the point of having a meta analysis to say something comprehensive--and if they DO put out something negative, people are more like to ignore it and not believe it because they totally heard someone say it worked for them. (This is not discrediting that big pharm has a hand in it and money talks. Both of those are true. Only that it makes perfect common sense, especially in the US with a capitalist system, that something with multiple purposes will sell for the other purposes, and thus will be more stable than something that only has a single purpose and NEEDS to prove that purpose before selling it will bring a return on investment.)

So, while I'd love more research and I'd never say no to it (With the exception of vaccines causing autism, I thought all the recent research was just the biggest waste of money that had to be spent to save PR face and keep people from rejecting from based on false information), I definitely see several mechanisms in place that keep natural studies from occurring and being a priority.

But fortunately, it isn't all like that. Kangaroo care, for example, has been very widely studied all over the world and shown astronomical benefits. So much so they're designing medical devices and treatments for NICU patients to be able to sleep/sit on the mother's chest while being treated during the day. It's free, cost effective, and results have shown it to be objectively effective in survival rates, growth rates, and health of the child long term. There are many free, or cheap, or even cheaper natural remedies doctors promote all the time--from simply helping your own body get over a cold, to herbal teas and hot packs for women with moderate cramping, to exercise and running and Mediterranean diets (which have been widely touted as being able to actually help reverse heart damage and it's the only diet that's shown some results in that aspect) and various studies on things like coconut water being a fantastic after work out drink. So it isn't like nothing is touched on natural medicines. It just isn't as squeaky, and researchers are really scared if they say x MAY have a slight correlation with y, that everyone will quickly spin it into eat x all the time to prevent y.

 

[Thalassa]

I think the aggressiveness of the non-GMO campaigns are what really do it for me. I honestly don't care--I like both styles honestly, I think we need that dynamic because it creates variety in the marketplace and there's definitely room for both cowboys here. But the messages are usually really, really dark. It isn't, "Hey, non-GMO is great. The seeds are cheaper for farmers, you know what you're getting. Return to your roots. *rainbow*" It's more like "Did you know you're eating pretty much evil poison? Yeah. You are. Cut that shit out. Everytime you eat a GMO carrot baby kittens get one of their eyes poked out. And they only have two.. Well, one now, asshole."

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

First milk commercial that came up for me. Positive message, outlandish, as commercials tend to go, standard old message: milk will make you strong so drink up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuUit86ILaU

Had trouble even finding a commercial, but most of the videos that showed up were pretty much this. "Lets show you how evil this shit is, and how much of an uneducated asshole you've been to think that squirrels are smarter than you are. Stop being such a moron and killing yourself and your family with your so-called food." When you fear monger, people either panic, or think you're full of it and ignore you because the message is offensive instead of uplifting. And that posh, uppity attitude that comes with the message is why people are turned off to it. No one really gives a shit if don't like milk. People REALLY care if you're for GMO products though.



On to what I came here to post about. The articles are a little old, but I just remembered them from a while back via a facebook redate (I dunno what to call those.. updates that are actually old stuff hashed up as if it's new?) posted today.

Vegan Nursing Mom's Baby Dies From Malnutrition | Parenting

Basically: The mom was fully vegan, and was vitamin deficient, and instead of taking caution of her baby's low birth weight (which is overwhelmingly a determinant of if your baby is doing well health wise and will continue to be the gold standard for if your baby is developing well or not) long before it was an issue, by the time she called for help the baby had passed away. Her vegan diet didn't provide her body the nutrients it needed because she was probably eating it wrong, and thus didn't provide any nutrient for the baby to survive either..

Vegan Mom Sarah Markham Faces Criminal Charges Over Underweight Baby

As much as I hate the huffington post, there's a hundred websites with this everywhere anyways. Basically the mother was uncooperative, supposedly gave her baby soy formula (but who knows in actuality), and used the I'm vegan card to play off her guilt as being neglectful as a mother. The media's super spinning this as a vegan vs non thing, because that's the card she's playing for her innocence, but the truth is she didn't follow doctor orders and she could have requested vegan-friendly food for her child at the hospital. Hospitals have the means to do that stuff. The case was really about whether she was neglectful of her son or not.

Vegan mom Sarah Markham regains custody of son Caleb | Daily Mail Online

The judge decided no, but losing 10% of body mass is really really bad for a kid. Saying, "fuck you doctor, you're a quack, I know what's best for my baby" without evidence that the doctor's just being an asshole is just the wrong answer. And this hippy religious stuff really irks me. That kid might not have been hurt right then or anything, but he certainly needed medical attention, and clearly the doctors were in the right to report that the child was not being treated to CPS. The mother's dad is all, 'Oh, the doctor just didn't like her challenging him.' No, clearly the kid was dehydrated and that's a critical amount of weight loss to pay attention to.. and all the doc could see was a mom that said, "yeah, I know you told me he needs medical attention, but I don't care." He was right to make the call even if the case was dismissed. Better safe than sorry.

No, the court isn't going to just make a kid disappear because the mom is a vegan, but the clear stipulation that she needed to collaborate with a nutritionist certainly shows she didn't know how to use her vegan diet appropriately with her child.

It takes a lot of education actually and effort to balance nutrients in a vegan diet for an infant. It's not an easy task. People think if you just eat enough fruits and vegetables you'll be free of all the bad things in health. Everything is balance. You take away an entire variety of food in your diet, you need to try extra hard to balance of the other weights on the scale again. The more options you take away, the more balancing acts you need to perform.

The Got Milk campaign was aggressive for nearly 20 years, and used celebrities in magazines and on billboards, it's not just one old commercial from the 80s. Got Milk only ceased it's onslaught in the past year or two.

As for vegan babies....veganism has been around for a long while, there are people in history who were vegan who you probably wouldn't even suspect, but it's been fairly large as a subculture since the late sixties or seventies, and it's possible to meet whole healthy functioning adults in their 30's and 40s who have been vegan since they were weaned from breast milk. That is one extreme alarmist case, the media loves to crack down on those one or two stories of vegan psychos who starved their children. ..not that there aren't omni psychos who also badly feed or starve their children. I really think you should take a look at Forks Over Knives, there are people who weren't supposed to outlive the year who lived three more decades due to switching to a sensible, informed vegan diet.

 

[kyuuei]

Her vegan diet didn't provide her body the nutrients it needed because she was probably eating it wrong, and thus didn't provide any nutrient for the baby to survive either..

The media's super spinning this as a vegan vs non thing, because that's the card she's playing for her innocence, but the truth is she didn't follow doctor orders and she could have requested vegan-friendly food for her child at the hospital.

No, the court isn't going to just make a kid disappear because the mom is a vegan, but the clear stipulation that she needed to collaborate with a nutritionist certainly shows she didn't know how to use her vegan diet appropriately with her child.

Those are all from my post. So, hopefully I've demonstrated I don't care if you're on a 100% kangaroo diet as long as you do it right--and if you're going to take on a lifestyle like that, you'd better know how to do it right when you put it onto a kid too because they don't know how to fix that shit and google it when they drop too much weight and can't figure out why. My aim, I hope clearly, wasn't to complain about vegan diets.. but the mentality that uneducated people get about vegan diets and all the hog wash being sold around it. Instead of looking at very, very obvious signs of infant distress, they're so convinced their way is the right way that it could end up hurting the child. It's a dangerous mentality, and it's sold in small, tiny bite sized pinterest chunks all the time.

That mom literally said, "I know you're a doctor and said my baby needs an ER.. But I just don't believe you're right and that you can make that call."Except doctors can make that call--AND they're obligated to report anything they suspect as abuse to a child, including failing to give it medical attention. That attitude is a VERY common one now-a-days, and I see a real danger in dismissing a doctor trying to resuscitate a child's fluid imbalance in favor of whatever she thought whole foods baby food was going to do that she wasn't providing before somehow. That is literally the whole idea behind farmacy. "Don't go to the doctor to get well! Go to the grocery store! The Organic one, of course."

I'll say again: The whole point of this thread is to pick on the extreme examples and ideas as well as the more mainstream ideas and hot-button-debates that natural medicine and foodie-farmacies and all that use to promote their lifestyle choices as if they're 100% science and not just a personal preference and philosophy based on some science while demonizing modern medicine and how people do things now-a-days as barbaric pretty much. So, yeah, I'm going to post extreme examples. It fits the thread well enough.

 

[Ivy]

 

[prplchknz]

actually if you made it to 21 and were male you more than likely would make it to at least 70 unless you were murdered or something, in the dark ages. High infant mortality rate and no vaccinations for childhood disesases made the average 35. which is another reason i'm pro modern medicine and vacinations

 

[Thalassa]

Those are all from my post. So, hopefully I've demonstrated I don't care if you're on a 100% kangaroo diet as long as you do it right--and if you're going to take on a lifestyle like that, you'd better know how to do it right when you put it onto a kid too because they don't know how to fix that shit and google it when they drop too much weight and can't figure out why. My aim, I hope clearly, wasn't to complain about vegan diets.. but the mentality that uneducated people get about vegan diets and all the hog wash being sold around it. Instead of looking at very, very obvious signs of infant distress, they're so convinced their way is the right way that it could end up hurting the child. It's a dangerous mentality, and it's sold in small, tiny bite sized pinterest chunks all the time.

That mom literally said, "I know you're a doctor and said my baby needs an ER.. But I just don't believe you're right and that you can make that call."Except doctors can make that call--AND they're obligated to report anything they suspect as abuse to a child, including failing to give it medical attention. That attitude is a VERY common one now-a-days, and I see a real danger in dismissing a doctor trying to resuscitate a child's fluid imbalance in favor of whatever she thought whole foods baby food was going to do that she wasn't providing before somehow. That is literally the whole idea behind farmacy. "Don't go to the doctor to get well! Go to the grocery store! The Organic one, of course."

I'll say again: The whole point of this thread is to pick on the extreme examples and ideas as well as the more mainstream ideas and hot-button-debates that natural medicine and foodie-farmacies and all that use to promote their lifestyle choices as if they're 100% science and not just a personal preference and philosophy based on some science while demonizing modern medicine and how people do things now-a-days as barbaric pretty much. So, yeah, I'm going to post extreme examples. It fits the thread well enough.

Thanks for admitting this, there are even vegan baby books and pregnancy books you can buy these days, and many vegan children are healthy and happy. Some people would rather harp on veganism than the fact that one out of five four year olds are overweight. Yes, you read that correctly: one in five four year olds. It's not rational to pick on Pinterest vegans when every commercial and billboard is encouraging you to eat cheeseburgers.

I don't go around trying to convert people either. I discuss my own choices, but I actually sat in Carl's Jr. last night drinking coke zero (not the healthiest thing either) while my date had a cheeseburger. We had walked miles around the valley in the wind and I wasn't going to begrudge him a meal. I honestly wasn't hungry, and cared more about his company than my personal feelings about fast food.

I actually had to learn how to be vegan. When I tried before I failed because I wasn't doing it right. I know how to eat now so I feel satisfaction and get nutrition so I don't feel like something is missing, and I won't berate myself or have a nervous breakdown or fall off the wagon completely if I have a Saturday at midnight chicken soft taco (less likely but possible if someone is out and tipsy and starving and had a lifetime of habits) a little bit of cheese in my pasta (more likely, happens to most people who try to exclude animal products). I would rather be mostly vegan and sane than turn it into an eating disorder (which some vegans do, but they should not be the image people have of all vegans).

I get what you are saying, I don't like extremists either, I think modern medicine has its place and people can be poorly informed, but seriously kyuuei, someone who starved their baby is A RELIGIOUS NUT not a trendy vegan. Veganism is partly religion to some people, though many people do it for health reasons, and that mother is to vegans what the parents who let their children die of xyz are to Christians, do you not get that? Anyone who has a baby had nine months to inform themselves on nutrition, that's not about Pinterest, it's about someone's religion.

 

[Ivy]

This thread is triggering some disordered thinking for me that I've worked really, really hard in the past year to uproot, so I'm going to unsubscribe. I just didn't want anybody to think I was ignoring them if they quoted me and I didn't address it.

 

[kyuuei]

seriously kyuuei, someone who starved their baby is A RELIGIOUS NUT not a trendy vegan. Veganism is partly religion to some people, though many people do it for health reasons, and that mother is to vegans what the parents who let their children die of xyz are to Christians, do you not get that? Anyone who has a baby had nine months to inform themselves on nutrition, that's not about Pinterest, it's about someone's religion.

I can't say I know a TON of vegan people, but I know plenty of vegetarians and foodies and stuff like that, and I volunteer from time to time at the raw food co-op here in Houston that's run by a total raw food nut. But I like her personality so I go. Don't have a problem with a diet, but it is a philosophical choice, not a nutritionally superior one alone.

Why I’m No Longer Vegetarian | Urban Antonio
“Forks Over Knives”: Is the Science Legit? (A Review and Critique) | Raw Food SOS

For every one that's found a great nutritional basis for veganism and vegetarianism, there are those who have found it quite useless for them.

But it isn't the diet that I take issue with at all, even if it wasn't nutritionally superior or even healthy. (McDonalds certainly isn't healthy, and I opt for it sometimes.)

It is definitely the fact that they treat this diet as a god-send like religion. It isn't just one person.

Freelee the banana girl is clearly off her rocker, and she constantly bitches about how young people are dying of cancer because they don't eat vegetable diets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICsCoCoS62w
Even the girl I SUPER like watching, I actively follow her on youtube and I heart her tons.. But she's religious about this. It isn't a diet for her, it's a whole lifestyle. At least she isn't saying that it can cure diabetes type 1 (I got super worried when that video got released about diabetes) but this is a very real philosophy for her. That her body can restore itself with her raw foods. And sure, she prefaces it with, "Don't try this necessarily, I'm not a doctor! Just saying my experience" but that really isn't the message many people will walk away with, and especially coupling that with black widow spider bites rarely being lethal and don't have much in the way of treatment unless you have overall symptoms so most people recover on their own regardless of eating habits, you instantly have a raw food healing.

It's very religious-y, and people don't have to be extreme like those examples I posted to WANT to believe in something. The idea of 'farmacy' is a very real idea being spread and it's spreading like wildfire. And, no coincidence, money is flowing like water towards that fire. A lot of people have spent a LOT of money and been duped by the idea that veganism and whole foods is all they need to get healthy. They WANT to believe that's all they have to do to be healthy people. They spend $40 on a can of super powder drink from 17 jungles because they get 100x more enzymes (aka protein) than they would from their regular boring cheap diet.

But that isn't the truth, and that's the message I frequently hear. The more local, and whole your food is, the more healthy you will be. And that's pretty misleading. Health involves far more than just food, even if it is an important part of health.. it isn't at all the only factor or contributor to it. I've definitely been duped by it before I decided to get educated, and I figured SO many people talking about it had to be true. And then I immediately felt like an old person that ordered a tap light on TV at 3am when I got very sick on a vegan diet. And I wasted all of that money. and it's gone, and it's never coming back. Money I could have spent on things that didn't make me sick. Like traveling, and adventuring. I could have gone snowboarding 3x over in the same amount of money I spent on whole foods and juice and smoothies and shit. I didn't feel healthier.. I gained weight, in all the wrong ways, and I got very sick. It's definitely not for everyone, and it is a decision that ought to be discussed before jumping into.

 

[Thalassa]

I can't say I know a TON of vegan people, but I know plenty of vegetarians and foodies and stuff like that, and I volunteer from time to time at the raw food co-op here in Houston that's run by a total raw food nut. But I like her personality so I go. Don't have a problem with a diet, but it is a philosophical choice, not a nutritionally superior one alone.

Why I’m No Longer Vegetarian | Urban Antonio
“Forks Over Knives”: Is the Science Legit? (A Review and Critique) | Raw Food SOS

For every one that's found a great nutritional basis for veganism and vegetarianism, there are those who have found it quite useless for them.

But it isn't the diet that I take issue with at all, even if it wasn't nutritionally superior or even healthy. (McDonalds certainly isn't healthy, and I opt for it sometimes.)

It is definitely the fact that they treat this diet as a god-send like religion. It isn't just one person.

Freelee the banana girl is clearly off her rocker, and she constantly bitches about how young people are dying of cancer because they don't eat vegetable diets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICsCoCoS62w
Even the girl I SUPER like watching, I actively follow her on youtube and I heart her tons.. But she's religious about this. It isn't a diet for her, it's a whole lifestyle. At least she isn't saying that it can cure diabetes type 1 (I got super worried when that video got released about diabetes) but this is a very real philosophy for her. That her body can restore itself with her raw foods. And sure, she prefaces it with, "Don't try this necessarily, I'm not a doctor! Just saying my experience" but that really isn't the message many people will walk away with, and especially coupling that with black widow spider bites rarely being lethal and don't have much in the way of treatment unless you have overall symptoms so most people recover on their own regardless of eating habits, you instantly have a raw food healing.

It's very religious-y, and people don't have to be extreme like those examples I posted to WANT to believe in something. The idea of 'farmacy' is a very real idea being spread and it's spreading like wildfire. And, no coincidence, money is flowing like water towards that fire. A lot of people have spent a LOT of money and been duped by the idea that veganism and whole foods is all they need to get healthy. They WANT to believe that's all they have to do to be healthy people. They spend $40 on a can of super powder drink from 17 jungles because they get 100x more enzymes (aka protein) than they would from their regular boring cheap diet.

But that isn't the truth, and that's the message I frequently hear. The more local, and whole your food is, the more healthy you will be. And that's pretty misleading. Health involves far more than just food, even if it is an important part of health.. it isn't at all the only factor or contributor to it. I've definitely been duped by it before I decided to get educated, and I figured SO many people talking about it had to be true. And then I immediately felt like an old person that ordered a tap light on TV at 3am when I got very sick on a vegan diet. And I wasted all of that money. and it's gone, and it's never coming back. Money I could have spent on things that didn't make me sick. Like traveling, and adventuring. I could have gone snowboarding 3x over in the same amount of money I spent on whole foods and juice and smoothies and shit. I didn't feel healthier.. I gained weight, in all the wrong ways, and I got very sick. It's definitely not for everyone, and it is a decision that ought to be discussed before jumping into.

Forks Over Knives, the actual documentary, is based on nutrition, very little philosophy involved. The doctor who created the program is an old man who used to push milk and meat in the fifties and sixties, and he questioned everything he knew based on medical research, on humans, not because of animal rights or peta. I think you should probably watch the actual documentary and read vegan for life before you say all vegans are philosophical. Yes philosophical vegans exist and some of them eat poorly but some eat well, with the type that are purely philosophical you get junk food vegans and so forth. Yes, people go vegan for their health, too. You were on a raw food diet thats not the same as following a nutritionally balanced vegan diet, in fact the nutritionists who wrote vegan for life advise against the restrictions of a raw food diet, it works for relatively few people. There's a right way and a wrong way to be vegan, just like there's a right way and a wrong way to eat meat or go low carb.

By that understand that people are free to eat purely by philosophy or culture, but those people may end up weighing 400 lbs because of their devotion to fast food, or may end up sick because they completely ignored nutrition when they went vegan and tried to live on lettuce and Tofutti products.

But don't twist things so that you imagine every vegan is some nut who would let their kid die, or who wouldn't rationally use an animal product if it was actually needed for some one to live. A lot of vegans are quiet, they're just people who eat differently than you do. You would probably be shocked at how many people are vegan and how healthy vegans can be. I met so many vegans, and even vegan children doing yoga in Los Angeles.

As for philosophical vegans, there are also Buddhist vegans, they aren't all PETA members.

Personally I am mainly doing it for health reasons, but also philosophical reasons on a smaller scale. However, I am not opposed to other forms of vegetarianism, or being Flexitarian and no I'm not going to kill myself if I have a little milk or something. I actually did not give up honey. I don't think you know a lot about vegans, there are about ten different kinds, ranging from nutrition only to exclusion of all animal products to "mostly vegan" or weekend vegans.

P.S. if you need tangible proof of beautiful healthy lifelong vegans it's very easy to find them if you were not so biased by your bad personal experience. ..all of the Phoenix children were lifelong vegans, Joaquin and Rain, not just River, and if you watch Forks Over Knives instead of just searching for critiques of it, you will see some of the healthiest looking old people you have probably seen anywhere. Just admit that maybe you did it wrong or did it wrong for your body, or that you may be one of the people who happen to need more animal products.