Let me answer someone's earlier two questions. Why do vegetarians need vitamins, and why do dieticians and doctors recommend meat in the diet?
1. Many vegetarians take vitamins because they've learned something about nutrition and realize that we all need more vitamins and minerals than we can reasonably get from the food we eat, especially given how denatured and over-processed most of it is. Our soil is getting worse and worse, and foods grown in it have less nutrients than a generation ago. Food processing leeches the nutrients out of things like wheat and gives us white bread. Then they "fortify" it with one tenth of what they removed and we're supposed to feel fortified. Another reason everyone should take supplements is that some nutrients, such as Vitamin E, are valuble in large doses--doses far greater than the amounts you could ever get only from your food. So, for instance, last week, the biggest review of the role of vitamin D in health found that people who took supplements of the vitamin for six years reduced their risk of dying from all causes. That's just one vitamin and one study. I've found about 5,000 studies showing the efficacy of supplemention in the medical literature.
As for vegetarians specifically, most start on a vegetarian diet by giving up meat. But they usually don't know jack about nutrition or non-meat foods. So until they learn more and incorporate more whole foods into their diet, they do know it would be wise to supplement. Their major concern would be in getting their B vitamins, calcium and possibly iron. But after a little research, they'll find they can get those from vegetarian sources. But, anyway, as I said, they and everyone else should continue to take supplements anyway.
2. Many doctors and dieticians recommend meat as part of a diet because they are simply clueless when it comes to diet. And if they do know better, they also know that most of their patients don't want to hear about change and taking responsibility for their own health. They just don't want to burden them with it, and they might be right. But most doctors have had virtually no training in diet and nutrition. However, that has started to change in the last 10 years as more and more mainstream doctors have been losing patients to nutrition-oriented alternative doctors who have been having a better cure rate than them. But, still, what they get in medical school is merely a crash course in nutrition whose content has been approved by special interest groups like the meat, diary, and sugar industries. They've also been trained to treat illnesses with drugs, not diet or lifestyle change. Are doctors healthy? The most unhealthiest group of people out there. And then the pharmaceutical industry has a tight reign around medicine, but that's too big a story to tell here. Dieticians' education is little better for the same reasons. I've read their textbooks. Their information is about 30 years old. They are nutritional Neanderthals thanks to these special interest groups.
Is a field that profits from you being sick going to put much focus on things that help prevent you from getting sick?
1. Many vegetarians take vitamins because they've learned something about nutrition and realize that we all need more vitamins and minerals than we can reasonably get from the food we eat, especially given how denatured and over-processed most of it is. Our soil is getting worse and worse, and foods grown in it have less nutrients than a generation ago. Food processing leeches the nutrients out of things like wheat and gives us white bread. Then they "fortify" it with one tenth of what they removed and we're supposed to feel fortified. Another reason everyone should take supplements is that some nutrients, such as Vitamin E, are valuble in large doses--doses far greater than the amounts you could ever get only from your food. So, for instance, last week, the biggest review of the role of vitamin D in health found that people who took supplements of the vitamin for six years reduced their risk of dying from all causes. That's just one vitamin and one study. I've found about 5,000 studies showing the efficacy of supplemention in the medical literature.
As for vegetarians specifically, most start on a vegetarian diet by giving up meat. But they usually don't know jack about nutrition or non-meat foods. So until they learn more and incorporate more whole foods into their diet, they do know it would be wise to supplement. Their major concern would be in getting their B vitamins, calcium and possibly iron. But after a little research, they'll find they can get those from vegetarian sources. But, anyway, as I said, they and everyone else should continue to take supplements anyway.
2. Many doctors and dieticians recommend meat as part of a diet because they are simply clueless when it comes to diet. And if they do know better, they also know that most of their patients don't want to hear about change and taking responsibility for their own health. They just don't want to burden them with it, and they might be right. But most doctors have had virtually no training in diet and nutrition. However, that has started to change in the last 10 years as more and more mainstream doctors have been losing patients to nutrition-oriented alternative doctors who have been having a better cure rate than them. But, still, what they get in medical school is merely a crash course in nutrition whose content has been approved by special interest groups like the meat, diary, and sugar industries. They've also been trained to treat illnesses with drugs, not diet or lifestyle change. Are doctors healthy? The most unhealthiest group of people out there. And then the pharmaceutical industry has a tight reign around medicine, but that's too big a story to tell here. Dieticians' education is little better for the same reasons. I've read their textbooks. Their information is about 30 years old. They are nutritional Neanderthals thanks to these special interest groups.
Is a field that profits from you being sick going to put much focus on things that help prevent you from getting sick?
