Does anyone here have a soda addiction?

[Andrei]

[dust]

I wrote in this thread to help someone with a soda addiction, the way I've helped many people over the years, with much more serious problems than this and with zero failure rate.  To argue with vegetarians and "corporate science" brainwashees was not the goal of my participation.  Let them eat cake. 

 

As this is your only post since my last, I suspect this must be directed at least partly at me.. but I have no idea why you would call me either a vegetarian or a "corporate science brainwashee", so I can't be sure. So I'll shut up till I know either way.

[dust]

Some people even do well on a vegetarian diet (shudder), though it pains me a little to say so.

 

Why?

[vonkrankenhaus]

Re:

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"It's partly caffeine and sugar, but I honestly think it's the phosphoric acid that's the kicker for me."

-----

 

Of course, these soda drinks come in aluminum cans.

 

Phosphoric acid (or citric acid, etc) will cause micro-pitting of the can (and dissolve BPA/BPS coating, if any) and bring tiny particles of aluminum into solution.

 

Aluminum is a neurotoxin.

 

Dialysis Dementia was discovered, I think, a few years before most soda and beer cans were switched from steel to aluminum.

 

ALCOA, the aluminum company, is a/the major sponsor of the Alzheimer's Association of America.

 

All of this sort of thing has been going on for  long time.

 

In colonial america they had hard cider (alcohol, citric acid) served in Pewter (lead, tin) mugs.

 

In Roman times, lead-lined water ducts.

 

They debate about mercury in vaccines, whether or not it is harmful - but the novel Don Quixote, written in the 1600's, details early in the story how quicksilver (mercury) was routinely put in donkey's ears to make them more docile.

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[liminal_luke]

Well, the honest answer has little to do with nutrition in general and even less to do with soda, but, since you asked, here goes. Put simply: I like to be right. Like many others, I can get a little entrenched in my opinions and hold on tight -- arguably a little too tight -- when they are challenged.

 

You might think vegetarians would be a peaceful bunch, but at least some of them like a good fight. Just like me. Sometimes they say bad things about bacon, which I happen to like. Sometimes they post disturbing videos online suggesting that people who don´t follow their diet are immoral. Paleo diets may be catching on, but when most people think healthy they think vegetarian. Still. It´s annoying.

 

It would be easier, for me personally, if the evidence clearly showed that everybody needs animal protein to live. Unfortunately, while I believe that many people, most people, do better on a diet that includes some meat, nutritional science is very complicated. Different people need different things. Just as some people do better, at least for a time, on ketosis, some people really do better as vegetarians.

 

I don´t like it, but I believe it to be true.

Edited September 5, 2015 by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

As this is your only post since my last, I suspect this must be directed at least partly at me.. but I have no idea why you would call me either a vegetarian or a "corporate science brainwashee", so I can't be sure. So I'll shut up till I know either way.

 

I really have no interest in making this personal.  If you find the time and interest to read the book I referenced, we can have a meaningful conversation afterwards, and I will be happy to hear out your scientific refutation of the scientific arguments that made a dent in my own former biochemical picture of the human body.  If not, here's the post I redirect everybody to in this situation -- nothing personal:

http://thedaobums.com/topic/38950-doing-no-homework-to-prove-anything-to-anybody/?p=641514

[Spotless]

At one point in time I used to play entirely too much poker - taken seriously it is a game which requires some record keeping, discipline and self monitoring.

 

I used to drink coke in a glass with lots of ice - and mostly chew the ice - but over time the caffeine was not good for my play.

Someone suggested ordering the coke with a splash of soda and working it down from there to soda with a splash of coke and a lime.

 

It did not take long before I was ordering Soda with a lime.

 

I have never had a big sweet tooth and was definitely not addicted to coke - it had just never dawned on me to order plain soda - what I liked most was a cold cold drink.

 

I think Taomeow's suggestion about getting off the Glucose was spot on. But if reaching for a soda as a habit leaves a void - you might try the plain soda transition - most sodas have around 8 tablespoons of sugar - they can be cut with plain soda aggressively and still offer a hint of their former "glory".

Edited September 6, 2015 by Spotless

[Taoist Texts]

 

How about the "Atkins Diet" - know anyone who has done that for any significant number of years?

Yes. They are called the Eskimos and the Masai.

[Taomeow]

Yes. They are called the Eskimos and the Masai.

 

Well, not exactly Atkins of course -- he's the baby of nutritional nontradition, a dissenting one but still affected by lack of historically accurate perspective. But what these peoples really eat -- super high animal fat, moderate protein, very low carbs -- someone else ate in the recent enough past, and no, it's not poor dietary habits that caused their demise:

100 million Native Americans, before you-know-who came to bless them with you-know-what.  And the huge cooking pits designed to fit a whole buffalo or whole bison for slow-roasting still exist, carbon dated 40,000 years, of which at least 25,000 years they were in continuous use, same pit, twenty-five thousand years of cooking meat for the whole tribe, year in and year out, millennium in and millennium out.  

Edited September 6, 2015 by Taomeow

[woodcarver]

Oh I know this one! Replace it with GOOD coffee + sugar and GOOD tea + GOOD raw honey.

 

Both of these options are cheaper and slightly less unhealthy. Once you start drinking real, quality flavors you wont want soda. You can also add fresh ginger and ginseng to tea which is insane.

 

Also a steak is the same price as a fast food value meal if that's also a thing.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEx9gPhtjzs

Edited September 6, 2015 by woodcarver

[Stosh]

Are you addicted to the habit , or the substance? One should ask themselves that. .. The reason why Imsaying this, is that I tend to be a bit compulsive, about lots of things. Ive been through phases that went on for years, where I really overindulged in things I liked. They were 'go to' habits. Maybe theres a better word for this than addiction. I am not saying a habit like soda consumption can't be very stubborn, it can be,, same goes for carbs , exercise, tao bumming , sleep, etc.. its just that any actions you take require your own consent, to Do them. One wants to be sated, to have acceptable things they can do to reduce stress, take their mind off work, treat themselves to Often.

Of all the things one might pick, Im not sure soda is such a bad indulgence, but you know it aint really great for you either. Calling it addiction raises the expectations of failure , that you wont drop the habit, and can be an excuse to yourself not to, so if you really think the soda is too much, then you gotta stop indulging yourself with it... because thats really all it is, a temporary habitual overindulgence.

[vonkrankenhaus]

Re:

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"100 million Native Americans, before you-know-who came to bless them with you-know-what.  And the huge cooking pits designed to fit a whole buffalo or whole bison for slow-roasting still exist, carbon dated 40,000 years, of which at least 25,000 years they were in continuous use, same pit, twenty-five thousand years of cooking meat for the whole tribe, year in and year out, millennium in and millennium out.  "

-----

 

100 million native americans did not eat the Atkins diet or anything like it - but the time period during which european colonizers arrived was during the Maunder Minimum - "The Little Ice Age".

 

The description of diet in the Plymouth Plantation logs details natives eating about 3-12% meat, and the mainstays being corn, squash, and beans. That's in cold New England area. No bison whatsoever there, or in many many parts of the continent.

 

40,000 - 25,000 years ago is the last Ice Age.

 

Yeah - during Ice Ages people in many areas were reduced to living on animal food as a major source.

 

That ain't the Atkins diet or anything like it.

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[vonkrankenhaus]

Re:

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"Yes. They are called the Eskimos and the Masai."

-----

 

Not the Atkins Diet.

 

These are people living in very extreme areas.

 

Eating like them would adapt you to their environment.

 

Is your heated concrete home and shopping mall in Florida going to feel comfortable then?

 

What happens to Inuit that travel down into temperate or tropical areas?

 

They are miserable. They have heart attacks.

 

My grandparents lived with and filmed both Masai tribes in Africa, and Inuit people in Alaska, and I think people who hold these up as examples of a diet they might eat in their developed neighborhood in temperate areas are not working with real facts or understanding.

 

These people and the way they eat is derived from their environment.

 

Study how and why - before you eat for that environment while living in a completely different one.

 

People juggle stuff in their mind until they feel okay about it.

 

But the "proof" is in the eating, and I will let everyone return to chewing whatever they'd like to and having their own results.

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

Edited September 6, 2015 by vonkrankenhaus

[Taoist Texts]

 

 

 

What happens to Inuit that travel down into ..or tropical areas?

 

Hmmm, they became Maasai may be?

[dust]

Well, the honest answer has little to do with nutrition in general and even less to do with soda, but, since you asked, here goes. Put simply: I like to be right. Like many others, I can get a little entrenched in my opinions and hold on tight -- arguably a little too tight -- when they are challenged.

 

I appreciate the honesty. Yes, we all like to be right, even if many don't admit it. Some are absolutely incapable of letting go of their dogma; this is, much of the time, where our biggest problems lie.

 

In the last year or 2 I've been doing my very best to recognize my own preconceptions & dogmas, etc -- and it's because of this I've come to the understanding, contrary to everything I used to believe, that we don't need meat to be healthy, and indeed that many of the healthiest, fittest humans alive are vegan. This is not despite their diet, but, at least in part, because of it. Each to their own, though..it's not for everyone.

 

 

You might think vegetarians would be a peaceful bunch, but at least some of them like a good fight. Just like me. Sometimes they say bad things about bacon, which I happen to like. Sometimes they post disturbing videos online suggesting that people who don´t follow their diet are immoral. Paleo diets may be catching on, but when most people think healthy they think vegetarian. Still. It´s annoying.

 

Oh..yeah.. veggies/vegans can be pretty vehement. I get it, though. Many are city-dwellers, very much disconnected from the primal, fundamental realities of life, and their perspective spirals out of control. They end up believing that humans are responsible for all the 'evils' in the world and that if we weren't around all the animals would be living in a fuzzy wonderland.

 

But I can't judge them too harshly. In my opinion, someone who does not, at some point in their life, evaluate their consumption of animals (whether or not they choose to become vegan), somone who has never felt any kind of remorse -- just a twinge of sadness -- at the idea of various animals being slaughtered for their daily meal, is missing something. Compassion is important.

[dust]

I really have no interest in making this personal.  If you find the time and interest to read the book I referenced, we can have a meaningful conversation afterwards, and I will be happy to hear out your scientific refutation of the scientific arguments that made a dent in my own former biochemical picture of the human body.  If not, here's the post I redirect everybody to in this situation -- nothing personal:

http://thedaobums.com/topic/38950-doing-no-homework-to-prove-anything-to-anybody/?p=641514

 

I have no desire to get personal either..

 

I will consider buying it. Certainly nutrition is an area of interest for me, and I have not made my mind up by any means.

 

For now, perhaps you would be willing to address a couple of questions I have about the introductory passage:

 

 

The hunter-gatherer diet may be defined via at least two different perspectives: Ice-Age Paleolithic, and post-Ice Age, or neo-Paleolithic. The diet of post/neo-Paleolithic peoples, including modern-day hunter-gatherers with some regional variation, essentially consisted of high quality animal source protein, both cooked and uncooked (including organ meats of wild game, all clean) that is hormone-, antibiotic- and pesticide-free, naturally organic, and entirely range-fed with no genetic alterations; some eggs, when available; insects, sorry to say; and/or

seafood.

   This diet was typically moderately high in fat—which was highly coveted—estimated to have been at roughly ten times our modern intake. This included varieties of saturated forms, monounsaturated, omega-3, and balanced quantities of omega-6, together with abundant fat-soluble nutrients. Post-Ice Age primitive human diets, as well as diets during more temperate periods amidst the Ice Age, generally included a significant variety of vegetable matter, some fresh raw nuts and seeds, and some very limited quantities of tart, wild fruit, as was seasonally available.

   [...]

   Studies of ancient human coprolites, or fossilized human feces dating anywhere from 300,000 to as recent as 50,000 years ago, have revealed essentially a complete lack of any plant material in the human diets of the subjects studied.

 

I'd like to know where she's getting all this from, especially the last part.

 

As far as I am aware, it is not possible to accurately date any organic matter beyond around 75,000 years using carbon-14, and all other dating methods are pretty unreliable.

 

I can't find evidence of (known) human coprolites older than 13,000 years. The oldest known human remains might date as far back as 230,000 years, but these are bones, and it's possible that they're as young as 145,000 years -- we can't know for sure as, again, other methods of dating (e.g. luminescence) are not very reliable.

 

If this is all true, I find it unlikely that the author knows of a sample of human coprolite that she can confidently date to 50-300,000 years old, or that she has managed to figure out exactly what is in it.

 

Now...there's a 30,000-year-old Neanderthal coprolite that is said to contain evidence of a lot of meat and a "significant plant intake". This fossil predates the end of the last glacial period, but there was apparently enough edible plant life in Europe at that point for plants to make up a significant portion of their diet.

 

Is this all addressed in the book, or are we just expected to take her word for it?

Edited September 6, 2015 by dustybeijing

[soaring crane]

Yes. They are called the Eskimos and the Masai.

 

Those Inuit were anything but healthy. They simply didn't live long enough to develop heart disease or cancer. The whole healthy fish oil myth began with a hugely flawed and misinterpreted study of them.

 

The study that started the fish oil myth examined only unreliable death certificates and other hospital documentation:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neal-barnard-md/eskimo-myth_b_5268420.html

 

 

The Massai get over 50% of their nutrition from plant sources in the dry season, and subsist mainly on milk/blood mixtures in the rainy season when their animals are nursing. They generally eat meat only for ritual purposes. And they drink extremely sweet tea, more like, would you care for some tea with your sugar?

[Taoist Texts]

Those Inuit were anything but healthy. They simply didn't live long enough to develop heart disease or cancer. The whole healthy fish oil myth began with a hugely flawed and misinterpreted study of them.

 

Thats not what wiki says;).

 

 

 

In the 1920s anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson lived with and studied a group of Inuit.^[66] The study focused on the fact that the Inuit's low-carbohydrate diet had no adverse effects on their health, nor indeed, Stefansson's own health. Stefansson (1946) also observed that the Inuit were able to get the necessary vitamins they needed from their traditional winter diet, which did not contain any plant matter. In particular, he found that adequate vitamin C could be obtained from items in their traditional diet of raw meat such as Ringed Seal liver and whale skin (muktuk). While there was considerable skepticism when he reported these findings, they have been borne out in recent studies and analyses.^[67][68] However, the Inuit have lifespans 12 to 15 years shorter than the average Canadian's,

 

 

Life expectancy in Canada hits 80 for men, 84 for women ...

www.cbc.ca/.../life-expectancy-in-canada-hits-80-for-men-84-for-wome...

•  

May 15, 2014 - In Canada, average life expectancy for males born in 2012 is 80 and for females 84, the agency said in Thursday's report, World Health Statistics 2014. 

 

 

 

65 years is quite sufficient to develop heart disease and/or cancer if those are linked to the diet. But they are not. Wiki knows.

[Taoist Texts]

The Massai get over 50% of their nutrition from plant sources in the dry season, and subsist mainly on milk/blood mixtures in the rainy season when their animals are nursing. They generally eat mean only for ritual purposes.

 

(sigh) 

 

Traditionally, the Maasai diet consisted of raw meat, raw milk, and raw blood from cattle. Note that the Maasai cattle are of the Zebu variety. In the summer of 1935 Dr. Weston A. Price visited the Maasai and reported that according to Dr. Anderson from the local government hospital in Kenya most tribes were disease-free. Many had not a single tooth attacked by dental caries nor a single malformed dental arch. In particular the Maasai had a very low 0.4% of bone caries. He attributed that to their diet consisting of (in order of volume) raw milk, raw blood, raw meat and some vegetables and fruits, although in many villages they do not eat any fruit or vegetables at all. He noted that when available every growing child and every pregnant or lactating woman would receive a daily ration of raw blood. Dr. Weston A. Price also noted the government efforts back in 1935 to turn the Maasai into farmers.

[soaring crane]

 

Thats not what wiki says;).

 

65 years is quite sufficient to develop heart disease and/or cancer if those are linked to the diet. But they are not. Wiki knows.

 

I've edited my previous post. I must have been thinking about a different nutritional myth, based on another flawed and exploited study of a different culture. If I remember which one, I'll mention it here :-)

[soaring crane]

(sigh) 

 

it depends on what season the researchers visit them, as I mentioned.

 

Btw, what the Massai do demonstrate is the value of an active lifestyle.

 

What you do with your body is far more important than what you put in it. Look at the ultra-distance running Taramuhara made famous by the Born to Run book. They subsist on maize for the most part.

[Taomeow]

I have no desire to get personal either..

 

I will consider buying it. Certainly nutrition is an area of interest for me, and I have not made my mind up by any means.

 

For now, perhaps you would be willing to address a couple of questions I have about the introductory passage:

 

 

I'd like to know where she's getting all this from, especially the last part.

 

As far as I am aware, it is not possible to accurately date any organic matter beyond around 75,000 years using carbon-14, and all other dating methods are pretty unreliable.

 

I can't find evidence of (known) human coprolites older than 13,000 years. The oldest known human remains might date as far back as 230,000 years, but these are bones, and it's possible that they're as young as 145,000 years -- we can't know for sure as, again, other methods of dating (e.g. luminescence) are not very reliable.

 

If this is all true, I find it unlikely that the author knows of a sample of human coprolite that she can confidently date to 50-300,000 years old, or that she has managed to figure out exactly what is in it.

 

Now...there's a 30,000-year-old Neanderthal coprolite that is said to contain evidence of a lot of meat and a "significant plant intake". This fossil predates the end of the last glacial period, but there was apparently enough edible plant life in Europe at that point for plants to make up a significant portion of their diet.

 

Is this all addressed in the book, or are we just expected to take her word for it?

 

Scientific references are provided in the book.  Conclusions do not rely on one particular method but are, rather, interdisciplinary (as is the author's schooling), some of them from areas not under dispute, others providing circumstantial or corroborating evidence, but none of it is a matter of agenda -- she had none starting out her research, beyond trying to figure out why her originally very healthy and very scientific family eating according to all the accepted scientific recommendations were dying young of degenerative disease.   My interest was also piqued by her putting her research to the test by living for a few years with Innuit communities in the North Pole and even with a pack of wolves.  (And looking a picture of health, strength, and natural beauty at around 60.  A far cry from the emaciated look of the older vegetarians, the flabby carb addicts, and the knotted and convoluted "sports nutrition" victims alike.) 

 

I do my research like that too, not necessarily going this far but going the extra mile always.  So, I read the papers referenced in the book, as I usually do with any book of interest to me, and the dissenting evidence too, trying to decide who is more trustworthy, and also did 9 months of eating the way she suggests myself, switching my metabolism to ketosis after about two weeks from the beginning of the experiment. 

 

Since I was not completely satisfied with "all" she presents -- not because of "prior beliefs" or poor research on the part of the author but because it is my nature to always dig deeper, for what the author may have missed -- I proceeded to undertake some research into epigenetics, a science that can theoretically disprove some of the conclusions of paleoanthropology and the like.  And a parallel inquiry into why earlier, pre-TCM taoists (and the older schools of zen in Japan too) advocate "abstaining from grains."  And so on. 

 

Nutrition is the single most complex subject in existence, make no mistake.  It's a lifelong study for me, and I take it seriously.  "Paleo" is just a word, and it means different things to different people -- just a label, nothing more.  ("Atkins" is very wrong from my POV, though not as wrong as "macrobiotics" or "fruitarianism" or the like -- there's shades of wrong and shades of right, of course -- but it's also just a label.  What to actually put in one's mouth and what not to put in one's mouth for optimal health is the real question.  I was ultimately satisfied with the answer I got, for now.  It is always a work in progress for me, has always been, and I adjust and modify beliefs to practice and comprehension continuously -- not vice versa.  I wouldn't wish the opposite approach on the worst enemy. )

Edited September 6, 2015 by Taomeow

[SonOfTheGods]

Be thankful OP that you don't have a nicotine/cigarette addiction (hopefully you don't)

[Taoist Texts]

Nutrition is the single most complex subject in existence

That's true. But why it should be so? Because eating  is the strongest bio-program of the human bio-robot. It overrides any critical thinking.

[SonOfTheGods]

There is,..

 

"Eating to Live"

 

But in the western world it has become

 

"Living to Eat" - an overindulgent pass time