Denise

[veggylvr]

As someone who has been on both sides, low carb and plant based, one observation really resonates with me: the LC side was always in rebuttal mode. Taubes, Eades, or Mingers, it didn't matter. Every few weeks, some new piece of research came out linking meat consumption with poor health/morbidity, and the LC doctors and advocates had to attack this research, usually on the basis of methodology.

This can be done with almost any study, and most of us are laypeople and can't effectively argue with the analysis, but the frequency that these "fires" had to be extinguished on the other side was striking. Regardless of what they said, the fact they had to say it so often certainly made it seem that the preponderance of evidence was not supportive of that WOE (which, in fact, it isn't).

By contrast, the plant-based advocates rarely have to do this. Their challenge is mainly convincing people they'll thrive on a plant-based diet and to give it a try. But there's a calm confidence on this side. Dr. McDougall, Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Campbell and the other plant-based advocates know they have the science behind them, and this, compared to the other side, is really apparent in their demeanors. They have the peace of mind that comes from dealing in truth not justifications.

[Katydid]

With the assumption that eliminating bad food groups can help prevent chronic disease, suppose we have two hypotheses:

1) Eliminating food group "RP" will help to prevent chronic disease
2) Eliminating food group "RP" and "A" will help to prevent chronic disease

Group 2) people support their hypothesis with various population studies. Group 1) people claim that Group 2) are drawing false conclusions because it could be that only food group "RP" (and not "A") helped to prevent chronic disease.

Suppose food group "RP" = "Refined Carbohydrates and Processed Foods" and "A" = "Animal products". This is the argument that Denise uses in the referenced video.

And this is where the misunderstanding comes from. It's not one or the other, but BOTH 'RP' and 'A' that needs to be eliminated. The true hypotheses should be:

1. Eliminating processed and refined foods will help prevent disease
2. Eliminating all animal products will help prevent disease
3. Eliminating BOTH processed/refined foods and animal products will not only prevent disease, but REVERSE it.

Our WOE supports #3, as does the peer-reviewed research. It's not enough to be Paleo - or a junk food vegan - you need a McDougall/Esselsyn/Barnard WHOLE food, low-fat, plant-based diet to actually heal from the chronic illnesses brought on by the SAD diet.

The Paleo crowd are correct when they dismiss a junk food laden, highly-processed 'fat vegan' diet. It isn't enough. Nor is eating a meat-heavy high-vegetable diet. There is no middle ground here. There is only the appropriate diet for humans - and we've found it here. Low-fat and starch-based

Kate

[f1jim]

veggylvr your point is well taken. After years of listening to "heretical" positions on diet and nutrition I have heard every possible excuse for why a particular piece of research was biased. They didn't take X into account. Y wasn't excluded. Sample size too small. And on and on. Always a reason another bit of research must be ignored. Not that data can't be manipulated, goodness knows it happens daily.
But it's not a quirk of fate the evidence continues to pile up about the many benefits of plant based diets. With what I have learned in just the last couple of years I wouldn't touch a piece of meat on a bet. It comes to your kitchen counter already infected, tainted, and in need of disinfecting by heat before you do anything. And even after heating at the proper temperature for the right time it's still a toxic time bomb. The process of bringing all this to market even endangers our plant crops on a large scale.
Jeff Novick teaches us to never look at just one piece of research and make decisions based on it. We have to look at a body of research. And when that body of research points in a particular direction we need to factor that into our decisions. Any one piece of research will have certain flaws but we can see trends and relationships between the sets of data that are revealing. We do have to be skeptical about any research but we have to be open to it's collective message.
The plant based diet is on a roll with both research and high profile people turning their life around with it's ability to heal. It's not just kooky people in the entertainment business making these changes. Heck, they will jump on anything whether it has substance or not. But the movement has high profile converts from every walk of life fighting the damaging effects of our western diet. The research continues to reinforce these changes as more and more people become available to study. The news is only going to get better with time. Just as is the case with following this program.
We can choose to live our life defending the undefendable and excusing the patently obvious or we can follow the undeniable march to nutritional truth. If you are here you have already come quite a way on that path.
f1jim

[ulialen]

As someone who has been on both sides, low carb and plant based, one observation really resonates with me: the LC side was always in rebuttal mode. Taubes, Eades, or Mingers, it didn't matter. Every few weeks, some new piece of research came out linking meat consumption with poor health/morbidity, and the LC doctors and advocates had to attack this research, usually on the basis of methodology.

This can be done with almost any study, and most of us are laypeople and can't effectively argue with the analysis, but the frequency that these "fires" had to be extinguished on the other side was striking. Regardless of what they said, the fact they had to say it so often certainly made it seem that the preponderance of evidence was not supportive of that WOE (which, in fact, it isn't).

By contrast, the plant-based advocates rarely have to do this. Their challenge is mainly convincing people they'll thrive on a plant-based diet and to give it a try. But there's a calm confidence on this side. Dr. McDougall, Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Campbell and the other plant-based advocates know they have the science behind them, and this, compared to the other side, is really apparent in their demeanors. They have the peace of mind that comes from dealing in truth not justifications.

Yes. You are completely right. While plant based doctors try always to make notice to the people the incredible amount of scientific articles that say
the benefit of plant based diet, low carb promoter try continuosly to make people to not watch to scientific articles.
That because the scientific truth is only one.
Low carb promoter to support the too strong pressure of the incredible number of scientific articles that support whole grains and vegetables,
have created atkins foundation (with the money of meat and animal food industries)with the aim to give money to create confusioning articles.

[Debbie]

As someone who has been on both sides, low carb and plant based, one observation really resonates with me: the LC side was always in rebuttal mode.

HA! I remember years ago, of course when I still low carbed, Dr. Atkins was on TV, like a 20/20 or Dateline type of thing, and the reporter was helping dispel the myth that low carb was unhealthy and just what did Dr. Atkins eat and what was in his fridge.

I remember sitting there saying "see, look at how healthy he looks and look at all that healthy food in his fridge, he eats the same things as me" as if that was really proof of anything. This would have been somewhere around 1997-1999. I remember cause my then boyfriend was always worried that eating all that meat wasnt healthy. He wasnt vegan, but I could definitely see him being one. But I was always in defense or as you say rebuttal mode about that way of eating. Always.

[healthy-longevity]

Second, I can't even begin to count how many times I've read something along the lines of "Well, that study was funded by Atkins! What do you expect?"

File under "damned if you do and damned if you don't."

A study funded by an affiliated industry by itself does not necessarily mean that the study is flawed or uninformative, nevertheless extreme caution is required as history has clearly taught us. For example studies with affiliation to the tobacco industry found that smoking was associated with a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s, yet studies without such obvious affiliations found the exact opposite.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906761/


See Plant Positive’s “The Best Low Bar Research Money Can Buy” videos linked below regarding the flaws of many of the low carb studies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6riZUY- ... 5&index=52
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZAP47e- ... 5&index=53
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9BGIPSF ... 5&index=54

Perhaps the obvious limitation with the low carb studies is that the comparison high carb group typically consumes nutrient poor carbohydrate rich foods. This is obvious because dietary fiber generally acts as a marker of nutrient density, and the high carb groups typically consume <16g dietary fiber a day, which is less than found in a mere single cup of lentils. In order to achieve this Atkins paid researcher do not need to cheat or specifically ask the high carb group to consume a low fiber diet, because they are well aware that the high carb group will automatically consume low fat junk food unless given extensive support to help the participants choose more nutrient rich foods.

Another limitation in the studies is that the researchers often ask the low carb group to consume protein and fat derived primarily from plant foods, a message which is typically not passed on to the average person by researchers or the press.

Another limitation in some of the low carb studies that appear to have been intentionally rigged is the use of improper randomization of participants, where the researchers place participants who will likely experience greater benefits from dietary change into the low carb group, a point outlined in Plant Positive’s videos.

[ulialen]

Instead i think that a study funded by an alimentation industry that regard the alimentation, represent a conflict of interest and for me it is not for sure a valid study.
The studies have to be funded with the money of all citizen as the funding of the state or with money of no profit organization to be without conflict of interest.

[healthy-longevity]

With the assumption that eliminating bad food groups can help prevent chronic disease, suppose we have two hypotheses:

1) Eliminating food group "RP" will help to prevent chronic disease
2) Eliminating food group "RP" and "A" will help to prevent chronic disease

Group 2) people support their hypothesis with various population studies. Group 1) people claim that Group 2) are drawing false conclusions because it could be that only food group "RP" (and not "A") helped to prevent chronic disease.

One of Denise Minger's points is that because that multiple dietary changes are made in studies on plant based diets, that the health benefits achieved by such changes maybe unrelated to replacing animal foods with plant foods but some other change to the diet unrelated to animal foods. (Although in much of the video rather than using terms such as "maybe" she chooses to use more inappropriate absolutist language)

Minger however clearly ignores many studies on humans and non-human primates that I have previously cited showing that replacing single foods such as milk protein with soy protein with all other factors kept constant still results in similar benefits. She has also failed to cite studies demonstrating similar benefits achieved with diets laden with animal foods.
http://healthylongevity.blogspot.com/2012/08/forks-over-knives-and-healthy-longevity.html

[RichardK]

HealthyLongevity and PlantPositive are the new best kept secrets of cholesterol denialists such as Denise Minger. These anti-darwinists wants us to believe that homo-sapiens is the only specimen on the face of this planet who is immune to the harms of excess serum cholesterol levels ("it's not the cholesterol, it's the wheat and the inflammation"). For someone to claim that these online cholesterol denialists and low-carb pushers are sincere goes beyond my comprehension.

[Thrasymachus]

I wonder what is the agenda of so many here on this forum to bash vegans and defend or quasi-defend, dangerous, duplicitous idiots like Denise Minger, and other pushers of ruinous fad diets?

I have listened to part of that crappy speech of hers. There is lots of evidence during it that she is reciting something someone else wrote with all the stumbling she does throughout it. Further this is what she used to have up on her webpage, before she had the sense to take it down:

About Me

... I started college when I was 16, switching majors about ten times but ultimately deciding on English.

I currently live in Portland, Oregon and work as a freelance health writer, teacher, and web designer.

You know what freelance writers do? Write what they are paid to, when they are paid to, for whoever pays them! In her case I think the stupid jokes, failed irony, and stupid quips are all her, but the cherry picked out of context, and twisted data from studies she cites and the minority conclusions she presents as mainstream research is fed to her.

It is hypocritical she tries to bring up how most vegans and vegetarians abstain from alcohol to discount the dietary co-factor of their better health outcomes, when her broscientist friends advise their lost minions to imbibe it. Dr. McDougall advises you would be better off without alcohol. I also know for a fact Dr. Gary Null advocates abstinence from alcohol as well. And probably every other expert advocating a plant based diet echoes that, because they are actually interested in health based on available evidence, not making money off the next fad which caters to existing addictions.

[Theodore]

I think there's been some confusion, Thrasymachus. Very few people here are bashing all vegans. And even fewer people here are defending Denise Minger.

I thought everything else you said was spot on though.

[ulialen]

HealthyLongevity and PlantPositive are the new best kept secrets of cholesterol denialists such as Denise Minger. These anti-darwinists wants us to believe that homo-sapiens is the only specimen on the face of this planet who is immune to the harms of excess serum cholesterol levels ("it's not the cholesterol, it's the wheat and the inflammation"). For someone to claim that these online cholesterol denialists and low-carb pushers are sincere goes beyond my comprehension.

True!

[didi]

Thrasymachus, maybe you should carefully check out "Dr." Gary Null.

http://www.quackwatch.com/04ConsumerEducation/null.html


especially scroll down to the part about his credentials.

Didi

[veggylvr]

You might want to question the info from Quackwatch. It seems Dr Barrett (who, like Mingers, isn't really qualified to critique dietary issues because he's an unlicensed psychiatrist) may have ties to Big Pharma:

http://www.anh-europe.org/news/quackbus ... -home-town

The point made above about Mingers is such a great one. These are "freelance writers" and bloggers. Who pays them? Who are they freelancing for? How do they live? Who has a vested interest in their comments?

I'm not saying all of these online bloggers are on the make, but when you see someone who doesn't report ANY good about the other side - who completely ignores or distorts conflicting evidence - you have to wonder.

[plants-and-carbs]

Thrasymachus, maybe you should carefully check out "Dr." Gary Null.

http://www.quackwatch.com/04ConsumerEducation/null.html


especially scroll down to the part about his credentials.

Didi

I don't care too much about Quack watch. They beat down anyone that is "alternative" and does not push drugs on people. While maybe I don't love Null, overall, he puts out good info and even recommends a diet very close to the Mcdougall diet. He also is very vocal about people needing to stop taking so many meds because they are a scam based on the drug companies "hypnotizing" people.