For crying out loud, why eat fruits and vegetables?

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Yes, I recall noticing that Sunkist orange drinks had no Vitamin C. How gratuitous are the schemes of these money-grubbing, Machiavellian Mean People.



Oh, don't be silly. You would be guilty of a strawman fallacy if you accused me of recommending lard. My diet primarily consists of whole wheat bread, some rice, a fruit or vegetable every now and then, soy, vitamins, and antioxidants.



Yes, but by how much do vegetables reduce such risks? That's a question nobody has even bothered to answer yet. Is that answer coming, or not?



I don't know yet, and the burden of proof isn't on me until it can be shown that vegetables and fruits contain such-and-such amount of these nutrients and that this proves they are essential.

I wish I could replace many of my long, drawn-out refutations with three words to greedy salesmen: Stop being mean.

Not a straw man argument ... man cannot live by macronutrients alone, and the cheapest source of nutrients is not always the best.




No, lets be honest - that is not a question 'they' haven't bothered to answer, it is a question that 'you' haven't bothered to research. For many diseases, they have measured risk reduction associated with various diet patterns. For example, a study on fruits, vegetables and gallstones found the relative risk for women eating the most fruits and vegetables was 0.79 compared with those eating the least (probably something like your diet). So in that case, a 21% reduction ... modest, but real. And other studies have shown a greater decrease in groups that eat large amounts of particular types of fruits and veggies.

A study on heart disease and diet found that on average, each daily serving of fruits and veggies resulted in a 4-5% reduction in risk of heart attack, although each daily serving of leafy green vegetables resulted in a 23% reduction.

A study on diet and psoriasis in Italy found "Significant inverse relations with psoriasis were also observed for the intake of carrots (chi 2(1) trend 4.8, P < 0.05), tomatoes (chi 2(1) trend 26.3, P < 0.01), fresh fruit (chi 2(1) trend 11.7, P < 0.01) and index of beta-carotene intake (chi 2(1) trend 9.1, P < 0.01).




You make the mistake of imagining that you are in a western court, where there is some prosecutor that has some burden of proof. The only burden is imposed by Reality - the burden of nutrition placed on an organism ... you can proclaim that you don't need this or that (and in the short-run, you probably don't) but in the long run, words and theories won't do you much good if you really do need it. It's your body - live as you please ... just don't expect us to buy into your delusions about nutrition.

How nice.

Actually, I have tried to research it, and I haven't found any of the answers I'm looking for.

In the studies you list, fruits and vegetables are claimed to reduce the chances of certain illnesses by specific likelihoods. How do you go about proving this? You can't just take a population sample, as explained before. You would be in danger of post hoc reasoning.

After all, it could just be the rich and healthy who bothered to eat fruits and vegetables in the first place. In that case, the causal relation would be

Being Healthy --> Eating Fruits and Vegetables,

not

Eating Fruits and Vegetables --> Being Healthy.

How do you tell which? It's not as simple as you think.



Excuse me, Monty, but I am a philosophy student and debate is one of my areas of expertise. I don't appreciate being called delusional, particularly when I have not even taken a side on the issue.

As I repeat (and you probably didn't read), there are three positions you can take in any debate: proponent, opponent, and skeptic. Here, I am playing the role of the skeptic, who has no burden of proof, which means I make no claim of the value of the food group in question that could possibly be considered delusional.

Save your ad hominem filth.

That's news to most on this thread.


...

Let's try to retain at least a semblance of intellectual honesty, shall we? You've been promoting some bizarre conspiracy theory about the rich oppressing the poor with fruit.


Um... if you're going to deny what is plain for all to see, you're just going to convince everyone that you're an idiot.

As far as your "peacock tail" theory, if any food is used as an indicator of elite status it has traditionally been steak rather than fruit.

Oh, oh! More ad hominems!

There's a difference between an ad hominem and an outright insult, Mike. I'm not rejecting any of your reasoning on the basis of you being intellectually dishonest and a moron to boot. Your reasoning can be rejected easily enough on its own grounds. Pointing out blatant lies is not an ad hominem.

As I said earlier, you seem to like crying "fallacy" whenever you disagree with someone, regardless of whether or not a fallacy actually exists. It gets old after a while. But hey, if you want to play this stupid little game of yours... aren't you repeatedly committing argumentam ad logicam, itself a logical fallacy?

All available evidence contradicts your claims. Why then should they be taken seriously?

well, I said either random or adolescent, I honestly fail to see what this had to do with Politics or Philosophy in a serious tone, other than apparently, someone creating a conspiracy theory based on subjective notions such as the dislike of fruits and vegetables for whatever reason, it seems it comes down to something like this "I hate fruits and vegetables, therefore they are crap, etc", the title of the thread kinda gives that hint, hence why the adolescent or even the kids forum seems to to be more related to the topic rather than PPR. And well, considering that vegetables and fruits are a natural source for whatever our biological needs are, being why such claim doesn't make sense.

I wanted to add that it has been stated that the lack of vegetables increases the chances of cancer, unless of course, it is all part of the conspiracy theory?

Wow! I've just read through this thread in something approaching horrified fascination.

Thank you so much, Orwell, for making me laugh out loud as I reached the end of it. I almost choked on my grapes!

As for eating fruit and vegetables - if you like them, eat them. If you don't, don't.

Yes, most epidemiology is post hoc correlation analysis - but it still can tell us something. Good epidemiology involves statistical control for as many factors as possible - age, gender, income, education, exercise, vices, etc. etc.

And we wouldn't want to test whether shooting someone with a particular caliber of gun, or infecting them with a particular bacteria causes disease. Much better to look at what happens after someone is incidentally shot, or after they have antibodies or evidence of infection ... all of which is post hoc, but still a good way to understand the world.

Last edited by monty on 20 Apr 2009, 7:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh, dear fortune. If only you had been nicer to me in our debate.

You know, some people say that you resort to ad hominems when you realize you have few other ways to back up your case. Hurling insults like bricks isn't persuasive.

At any rate, I didn't mean to hurt any of your feelings. Thanks for trying.

As someone who has discovered that eating fruits and vegetables directly converts to a good digestion and a general feeling of well being I suppose individuals may vary. When I was younger (I am now 83) my general metabolism could tolerate excesses with eating high caloric fast foods but age has made me more susceptible to mistreating my food intake although, in general, my health remains pretty good. But aside from the general discipline imposed on me by diet variety, it seems to me an abuse of possibility to limit myself to what is essentially refueling an organic machine. As someone who delights in kitchen experimentation the concept of ceasing to be interested in trying out new flavors and textures would make my life exceedingly dull. The very large array of fruits and nuts and vegetables available at prices that in no way threaten my very small income (I am on pension) would deprive me of a delightful dimension to what remains of my life and I have had enough limitations imposed upon me by my somewhat over mature glandular system otherwise. Although a female behind still holds a certain fascination as it modulates its passage down the street, I'm afraid I have definite declines in ambitions in that mode so I exercise my interests more into nourishment and food, including all sorts of fruits and vegetables, and it serves me well.

Um... as an ex-philosophy student, I'd just like to point out that it doesn't mean you can say fallacy a lot. If you're that way inclined, that's fine. But not every 3 posts it isn't.


Also, nice post from Sand. The coolest 83 year old I have read. Recently.

If they use fallacies every three posts, then what else are you going to do?

It's educational.

You're claiming the existence of fallacies even where none exist just to avoid having to argue the point. This is called the fallacy fallacy.


No, it's a cop-out. And I should point out that the studies you were lambasting are based on inductive reasoning.

The problem is identifying when a fallacy actually occurs and doing it accurately, the concept of fallacies can be easily misused and misinterpreted and sometimes they are presented as a justification for supporting and defending a position against critical arguments for said position, in the end, the claim of an argument to be fallacious, won't be always the case, and that would make such claim a fallacy itself.


well, using a tool as a means to justiffy your bias against critical opposition is hardly educational, at least in the way it seems to be presented, although I believe it can be said to be educational when it comes to issues related to bias, although that doesn't mean this is exactly the case, but it seems to point to that direction, though I disregard Orwell's claim of being "garbage" as it is something subjective and usually claims like that come from emotional reactions against something, I would say 'absurdity' in the intelectual sense to fit better, but that's my humble opinion.

I would say that learning the different positions about a single issue, especially ones you haven't heard of or taken into consideration before to fit more into that being educational, IMHO.

As I have!