For crying out loud, why eat fruits and vegetables?

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MikeH106
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25 Apr 2009, 11:07 pm

Orwell wrote:
Now, the issue at hand deals with biology, specifically human nutrition. Biology, by its nature, must use inductive reasoning rather than strict deductive reasoning. Because of this, nothing is ever proven in the sense that you are asking for.


I'm not asking for a mathematical proof, only a good study.

If they compare people who eat fruits and vegetables to people who don't, they neglect the possibility of genetic influence on personal health and wellbeing, as well as the decision to eat fruits and vegetables that might be based on it.

A better study would be to advise people who don't eat fruits and vegetables to begin eating them, compare them with a control group that never eats fruits and vegetables, and observe any noticeable increase in health and well-being. They would also have to take proper demographic samples and be wary of other factors that influence health as a result of one's decision to eat fruits and vegetables, including societal praise.

Or, again, if fruits and vegetables have merely arisen as a fitness indicator, they could just stop being mean.


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25 Apr 2009, 11:11 pm

MikeH106 wrote:
I'm not asking for a mathematical proof, only a good study.

There have been several.

Quote:
If they compare people who eat fruits and vegetables to people who don't, they neglect the possibility of genetic influence on personal health and wellbeing, as well as the decision to eat fruits and vegetables on which it might be based.

The type of genetic influence you are implying seems unlikely, though I can't reject it out of hand. Large enough studies that are randomized enough are our best indicator.

Quote:
A better study would be to advise people who don't eat fruits and vegetables to begin eating them, compare them with a control group that never eats fruits and vegetables, and observe any noticeable increase in health and well-being. They would also have to take proper demographic samples and be wary of other factors that influence health as a result of one's decision to eat fruits and vegetables, including societal praise.

Well, they had a trial that you yourself cited which showed health improvements for people eating fruits and vegetables. Long-term studies of that sort are ethically dubious and essentially impossible to implement, so we have to make do without them.

Quote:
Or, again, if fruits and vegetables have merely arisen as a fitness indicator, they could just stop being mean.

But beef is usually more of a wealth indicator, as that is what people serve to flaunt their wealth.


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MikeH106
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25 Apr 2009, 11:14 pm

Orwell wrote:
The type of genetic influence you are implying seems unlikely, though I can't reject it out of hand.


Thank you for admitting that.

Quote:
Well, they had a trial that you yourself cited which showed health improvements for people eating fruits and vegetables.


No, as I showed in that post, the details of the study were not mentioned.


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25 Apr 2009, 11:16 pm

MikeH106 wrote:
Quote:
Well, they had a trial that you yourself cited which showed health improvements for people eating fruits and vegetables.


No, as I showed in that post, the details of the study were not mentioned.

Do you have a link to the study?


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26 Apr 2009, 12:59 am

Went to the store. Mike, had you done your research you could have spared your self 8 pages of ridicule.

All prices in Canadian dollars. No tax applies. American dollars will be approximately 80% of these costs. 1 pound = 2.2 kilograms. lb is used as an abbreviation for pound.

cucumbers 1.49 each
pineapple 4.98
apples 1.0 / lb
navel orange 0.80 / lb
Head of iceberg lettuce 1.44
baby cut carrots 1.00 / 2 lb
regular carrots 2.49 / lb
broccoli head 1.99 each
cauliflower head 2.99 each
green onions 0.79 / bunch
celery 1.99 per heart
hot house bell pepper 5.98 / 2lb or 6
turnips 1.99 / lb
boy choy 0.99 / lb
cabbage 0.99 / lb
red cabbage 0.99 / lb
leeks 0.99 / lb
field tomatoes 2.49 / lb
hot house tomatoes 0.88 / lb
red onions 1.49 / lb
white onions 0.99 / lb
sweet onions 0.98 / lb
yams 0.68 / lb
white potatoes 3.98 for 10 lbs
red potatoes 6.99 for 10 lbs
yellow potatoes 7.89 for 5 lbs
ginger root 3.99 / lb (I love ginger)
squash 1.99 / lb
banana 0.79 / lb
grapes 2.99 / lb
pears 1.00 / lb
honey dew 4.99 each
cantaloupe 3.99 each

33 items. Not at all comprehensive, and I got my prices from the closest store, not necessarily the cheapest.

I subside on 542 dollars a month from the government. I qualify as the poor you were talking about.

If I bought one of each of those items, I could not fit it all in an empty full size fridge. Total cost? $79.88. I could not possibly eat all that in a month. And I would have 25 lbs of potatoes. Most of my food would spoil.

I dont need a pound of ginger, 100 grams is more like it.

Four items/units weigh more or less than a pound, the green onions and the spuds. That leaves 29 items of 1 pound or greater(I can freeze the ginger), with the bell peppers being approximately 2 lbs. That is 30 pounds of veggies, plus the spuds, another 25, for a grand total weight of roughly 55 pounds.

A loaf of whole wheat bakery bread costs 1.49 and weighs about 1 pound. A standard recipe calls for 450 grams of flour. 1 pound is 460 grams. 55 pounds of bread would cost ~81.95. If you eat 3 meals a day, there are 90 meals in a 30 day month, and you eat only bread each meal, you will need 134 dollars and 10 cents worth of bread. And thats the cheap stuff.

You want to eat meat too? Meat is considerably more money. You'll only drive the price up. Meat is considerably more. I can get 2 porkchops for 3.98, a weight of 1 kg or 2.2 pounds. One pound of hamburger is half that, and still more than a loaf of bread.

MikeH106 wrote:
You want to hear my theory? The necessity of fruits and vegetables in a healthy diet is a government conspiracy to maintain control and dominance over the lower classes. They accomplish this by confusing them, making them feel guilty, and getting them to waste money. The presence of fruits and vegetables in a diet is merely a costly fitness indicator, a 'peacock tail' of sorts, of no real nutritional value that allows people who have healthy enough GENES to afford them to appear wiser through use of sophistry, rather than simply more fortunate.



Conclusion: Fruits and Vegetables are the least waste of money, giving the greatest bulk, plenty of fiber and vitamins, and with a light supplement of meat products, ones diet contains everything that bread and vitamins have to offer. The proposed conspiracy is grossly ineffective. The use of veggies and fruit reduces living costs.

Tomorrow, if you persist in your nonsense, I will go to the health food store and select a good multivitamin. I suspect that a lower end product will cost at least 30 dollars, and when I tack that onto the 134.10 of a pure whole wheat diet, the price will be in excess of 160 dollars a month. A bottle of 60 vitamins will cost 0.5 cents each.

Hell, I'll even go back and price out some skippy peanut butter. Crunchy or smooth sir? I only regret that I forgot. I know damn well that the cost of peanut butter(the rejected peanuts of the industry) subsidizes the cost of whole dry peanuts. Dry peanuts cost more, but they would cost even more than that if people realized that peanut butter is made from the peanuts that dont look good enough to eat.

160 a month. Thats twice what a pure vegetable diet costs.

Your premise is wrong. Your scepticism has done nothing for you. Maybe get out of the debate room and go do some shopping. Take a calculator if you are bad with math.

Go ahead, have hurt feelings. It doesnt hide the fact that not only are you wrong, but you didnt even do elementary research. I had to do it for you.


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MikeH106
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26 Apr 2009, 7:47 am

Fuzzy, I hate to have to do this after your all your hard work, but you completely missed the point of the whole debate, you insulted me, you didn't take calories into account, and you committed the fallacy of hasty generalization.

You think you can win arguments by walking around in a store for an hour, and then coming back to spout one insult after another? What a load of garbage. Yes, I am hurt.

You have done nothing to show that fruits and vegetables are essential to a healthy diet. Sorry to burst your bubble.


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Fuzzy
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26 Apr 2009, 10:06 am

MikeH106 wrote:
Fuzzy, I hate to have to do this after your all your hard work, but you completely missed the point of the whole debate, you insulted me, you didn't take calories into account, and you committed the fallacy of hasty generalization.

You think you can win arguments by walking around in a store for an hour, and then coming back to spout one insult after another? What a load of garbage. Yes, I am hurt.

You have done nothing to show that fruits and vegetables are essential to a healthy diet. Sorry to burst your bubble.


I'm sorry. Did I call you a name? Did I say you were unintelligent? I did nothing of the sort. I said you were wrong, which all people are at times. Why anyone would be hurt by that I dont know. Insecurities? To err is human. That fact that I even respond to you validates the fact that I think you are capable of rational thought. You have intelligence. You can grow.


Sorry to burst your bubble, but your wheat based bread is a vegetable product, and nothing amazingly different from other veggies. Your peanut butter is made from peanuts, another plant protein. Ultimately you are advocating a diet based on a subset of a diet that you are disparaging.

Fine Mike. Some easy math.

An average slice of whole wheat bread has 80 calories. There are usually 12-14 slices per loaf. At 14 slices this works out to about 1120 calories. Assuming you are a typical sedentary aspie(I know I am) 2500 calories should be plenty for your day. Eating that loaf of bread gave you just about 1/2. Two table spoons of peanut butter is about 200 calories. That should be enough for a slice of bread. How much peanut butter do you eat in a day? Once? You are not getting enough calories. 5 times? Thats just right, aside from the fact that most people would get damn sick of it pretty quick.

But I have a favourite food that I eat all the time. I'll assume that you can stand to eat that much peanut butter. Aspies are strange that way sometimes.

2 table spoons is about 1 ounce of measurement, assuming its level. So a heaping table spoon is about 1.5, maybe two. A 32 oz jar of peanut butter will serve you 24 times.

You suggested that one can get by(thrive!) on bread, peanut butter and vitamins. Your vitamins give you almost no calories.

You said nothing about meat. Do I assume you dont eat it?

Lets assume. The omission is your problem.

So five helpings of PB(but no jelly-thats a fruit!) and a loaf of whole wheat, and a multivitamin. You got your calories.

Do you really eat that much peanut butter?

Thats a jar every five days or 6 jars a month.

One serving(2 table spoons) of PB is 16 grams of fat. The bread adds another 4 per slice. The maximum daily recommended intake of fat for someone on a 2500 calorie diet is 80 grams of fat. At five servings of PB on bread, you are taking in 120 grams of fat, or 50% more than you should.

This is a diet to get fat on. Even if the calories are correct. Its full of cholesterol.

You would be better off dropping the PB and having a steak every day. You'll get a bit more protein(25 grams) than the peanut butter(19.5) and less fat(21 grams). The volume of food will be greater and you will feel full longer. You could have two steaks even.

I have shown that your idealized diet is not healthy. It lacks variety, which promotes happiness. Its too high in fat. Its high in processed sugar. It has no flexibility.

Now for fruit and veggies.

If I eat two bananas a day, thats 400 calories. No fat, and 24 per cent of my daily needs for fiber. Thats four slices of bread. Bananas are beating bread.
And a cup of pine apple. Thats 210 more calories and another 11 per cent of my fiber. Variety is winning.

Just after breakfast I have over 1/3 of my fiber, 1/5 of my calories and i havent eaten anything twice.

Lunch. Some tomato soup. 205 calories, 13% of my fiber and 15% of my fat. I have some celery, 19 calories and 8% of my fiber. Just under 1/3 of my daily calories, 67% of my fiber.

I can still pig out on meat and snacks for my fat, get the bulk of my fiber from potatoes at supper, and probably have a cola later and not worry about calories.

Supper. Potatoes, mashed. 205 calories. 13% of my fiber. steak, sirloin, 500 calories, 25% of my fat. A serving of raw bell peppers. 10% fiber. 30 calories.

I'm at 1300 calories, 100% of my fiber, 38% of my fat.

I can still have 2 cans of coke (160*2 calories) and be around 1600 calories. A big bag of chips adds 7% fiber, and 23% fat. I can catch up on fat the next day.

Really, I dont even need 2500 calories, I am not very active. I could stop at 1300.

Caloric calculations are easily done. I did it as a class activity in grade 6. You burn the food and measure the heat output in comparison to the heat applied. The difference, when the food is rendered to ash, is the calories. It would be very hard for the government or anyone else to falsify these numbers. The numbers for veggies and fruit are accurate.

Fiber and fat are also fairly simple to determine as well. It takes some good equipment, but nothing that the average person couldnt have.


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MikeH106
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26 Apr 2009, 11:37 am

I'm not going to debate any further. I will leave it to the readers to decide for themselves what to infer, if anything, about the importance of fruits and vegetables in a healthy diet.


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26 Apr 2009, 12:42 pm

Fuzzy wrote:
Caloric calculations are easily done. I did it as a class activity in grade 6. You burn the food and measure the heat output in comparison to the heat applied. The difference, when the food is rendered to ash, is the calories. It would be very hard for the government or anyone else to falsify these numbers. The numbers for veggies and fruit are accurate.

Fiber and fat are also fairly simple to determine as well. It takes some good equipment, but nothing that the average person couldnt have.

Decent makeshift calorimeters can be made with styrofoam cups and some foam.


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26 Apr 2009, 3:16 pm

Bluestocking wrote:
MissConstrue wrote:
If they're cooked, I usually put hot sauces and flavors in mine.

If they're raw, I usually dip em' in something tasty and fattening.

I like putting mine into soup. I have a special recipe for chicken soup with bok choy, leeks, lily buds, bamboo shoots, and risotto on the side, along with french bread for dipping. It's delicious.
But the best fruits in the world are the ones I get in my own backyard back home. Delicious mangoes, served with vanilla ice cream, or lychees peeled and eaten right off the tree, persimmons, all wonderful. For veggies, the best dip I've found is melted gouda cheese, with some tomatoes mixed in.



Mmmm....that sounds delish especially the mangoes and vanilla ice cream!! !! !!


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26 Apr 2009, 7:57 pm

Orwell wrote:
Decent makeshift calorimeters can be made with styrofoam cups and some foam.


My calorimeters are da bomb!!