"My wife, the "nutritionist"" Topic

It has reached this pitch: this morning, she takes the stack of Ikea plastic storage bins she bought yesterday outside to "air out" on the deck. "I just want to be healthy," she says, "And I can smell them." Of course she can smell them, they're plastic, but I point out that in the sun they will just become even more "smelly". So she laughs at herself and brings them back in and says, "I guess I'll just have to take them back and use cardboard boxes instead."

She's got a cleaned out system from all this vegan eating she's been doing for lo, these two whole years. So her sense of smell is probably a tad keener, but really folks, it is the fault of her goofy friends, mentors, gurus and nutjobs that she calls "people who know about these things", etc.

It all started c. two years ago when she decided to go this route, because of manifesting health issues vis-a-vis middle age. And along with "fancy enemas" (called colon cleansing) and expensive "organic" foods, I hear the blender go off like a tortured animal several times each morning and sometimes in the evenings too, and our fridge is crammed with her special foods, the kitchen and even the whole house at times smells like brocolli mixed with you name it, whatever goes into those smoothies and those veggie stews. I always wrinkle my nose and quip, "Where's the beef?" Her food looks like baby food or even baby poop. And I am offered the daily pleasure of kissing the mouth that takes that gross stuff in. Well! Other than burps right after eating, her breath is actually okay, thank goodness!

But seriously, she's got to stop listening to these goofy friends, mentors, gurus and et al. health freaks, they are not rational. I know that if she gives a reason for "airing out" her new Ikea plastic storage bins, it will come down yet another assertion of "research has shown" that plastic in our society is one of the leading causes of cancer. I point out that she started life in this "cancer inducing world" with a plastic band on her baby wrist, and she's been practically EATING plastic "contaminated" foods her whole life, and she wears, sleeps in and drives plastic, not to mention writing with plastic and sticking plastic to every surface that she applies tape to, etc. and etc and etc. This is a plastic world. People also get cancer but it isn't because they stored their baby poop colored food in the fridge in plastic containers, Ye gods!…

DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why hasn't she gone off about your lead yet?

Abandon hope, yee who's friends have entered here. It will just get worse. Like many things, 'gurus', aka experts, only retain their title by coming up with new Great Enlightenments. It's a perverse sort of arms race, 'So, you think you can out vegan, me, do you? Well, not only will I recommend a high colonic three times daily, but I'll raise you an herbal wrap AND recommend you drink your own urine. Swami Abgutparamasalamandingdong has been doing it for years and he's still alive.'

My Wife, thank heaven, loves Steak off the Grill so I am safe.!

You have my sympathy!

Ironically if you challenge the lack of real science supporting these claims, you will probably be the one labelled as brainwashed because you believe the corporate structure that "pushes" the unhealthy food you eat.

Irrationality can't be fought with reason. Ridicule sometimes works, but I presume it would be too dangerous to your marriage.
But maybe there is another way, I have only seen it's effect once. It would be to introduce a different teaching, one more tolerable to you. Slowly, unnoticeably.
Good luck my friend

Well, I've always thought it was odd that people think eating veggies that have been grown in is healthier than eating veggies that have been grown with processed ammonium nitrate.

Just sayin'.

P.S. Over 50 First World deaths are directly attributable to eating organically grown produce, and that's just in the last four years. None are attributable to eating produce grown using chemical fertilizers and herbicides/pesticides. The latter method also lowers food costs, making it easier for poorer people to feed themselves and their families, and contributing to overall health in general.

Yes, ISTR reading that there is no real difference in nutritional value between "organic" and "regular" produce. So all you're really paying for is for someone to grow it the hard way…

Damon.

"Abgutparamasalamandingdong"

LOL That one I am committing to memory….

@Parzival:

Over 50 First World deaths are directly attributable to eating organically grown produce, and that's just in the last four years.

More correctly stated, people have died from e coli contaminated vegetables, organic or non organic have nothing to do with it. But it could be a higher risk of e coli in foods that are raised in animal fertilizers rather than chemical fertilizers, it seems to me also….

@Parzival:

Over 50 First World deaths are directly attributable to eating organically grown produce, and that's just in the last four years.

More correctly stated, people have died from e coli contaminated vegetables, organic or non organic have nothing to do with it. But it could be a higher risk of e coli in foods that are raised in animal fertilizers rather than chemical fertilizers, it seems to me also….

Actually, I'm referring to the recent deaths from e. coli. directly traced to organic farming in Germany. I believe the veggies in question were lentils, IIRC. In any case, I think the actual number of deaths was 58— caused by one organic farm.

Of course, we could completely eliminate e. coli, salmonella and other contamination poisonings simply by treating produce, eggs and meats with low level gamma radiation. The gamma rays kill all bacteria, and leave no residual radioactivity behind (they can't— gamma rays are not absorbed by animal tissue or plant cells— they pass completely through). But the same morons that think organic farming is better than chemical farming ("because it's got chemicals! Eeek!") also hear the word "radiation" and assume everyone's going to wind up with three heads and thirty-eight toes if so much as a light beam hits their veggies. Idiots.

colon cleansing

Anyone who has seen a colonoscopy should know better. The colon does not need cleansing, it does fine by itself.

Remember, marriage is like a hand of cards.

At the start, you need 2 hearts and a diamond.

After 10 years, I would settle for a club and a spade….

Bake cookies. No woman can resist fresh baked cookies. Then steak and, mashed potatoes and steamed veggies-make the house smell like a fine restuarant-then break out the wine…

Parzival is spot-on.

@Editor: none of that reasoning worked on my wife, who was in the grip of a "colon cleansing expert" who calls herself a doctor. At least my wife hasn't had any repeat "treatments" yet, and hopefully won't….

My wife does not eat cookies, mashed pototoes or drink wine. She is however the steamed veggies fan. Once in a while she'll eat a teensy weensy bit of steak, but only when she's feeling "weak" and not sure she should trust the vegan swamis….

Why do women always find the "meat is bad" websites but never the "tantric sex 3 times a day with your partner is good" sites?

Raise the following points (which I made on another thread):

1.) 95% of all plants are either nutritionally inedible or poisonous to humans.
2.) 95% of all animals are nutritionally edible to humans.

All herbivores, however, have a much broader range of edible plants, and cannot digest meat products at all.

Ask her why that situation should have evolved, if meat truly is unhealthy for humans to consume? If we were only meant to consume plant matter, why shouldn't we be evolved to eat leaves and grasses off of just about anything, in the manner of deer, cows, horses, antelope, etc.? Instead, all our plant food typically has to be grown with great labor; "gathered" plant food would simply be insufficient as a source of calories for the typical human— especially in winter, when fruits, berries and grains aren't to be found.

Her "gurus" are wrong, and haven't though anything through at all.

"The latter method also lowers food costs, making it easier for poorer people to feed themselves and their families, and contributing to overall health in general."

Absolutely correct, and if anything understated. Modern farming does not just make it easier for poor people to afford food, it is the only way we have to grow enough food for the world's population to eat at all.

I like veges personally, especially when accompanied by meat.

Actually, not dying from a number of malnutrition and disease (often brough on by malnutrition) related illnesses is the leading cause of cancer in the modern world. Plastic, no so much.

Actually, I just switched to a vegan diet (recommended by my doctor) and have had great results on weight and (way more important) my blood sugar is under control using a quarter the insulin I was before with it *not* under control.

So, not for all, but I'm better off against solid metrics and long-term consequences.

One of the odd consequences is that all my convenience food is organic – its hard to find non-organic vegan tinned soups for example.

Also, I started using glass containers, but that's because it is so hard to clean off tomato sauce residue from plastic.

Guys can do vegan easier than girls can. Girls lose vitamin B12 during pregnancy. This can only be replaced with a meat diet. So vegans must take supplements. Evolution made us this way. There was never an "egalitrian" time in our ancestor's lives when we lived on nuts and berries!…

Ask her why that situation should have evolved, if meat truly is unhealthy for humans to consume? If we were only meant to consume plant matter, why shouldn't we be evolved to eat leaves and grasses off of just about anything, in the manner of deer, cows, horses, antelope, etc.?

Actually, I can answer those questions

1) Despite what vegetarian propagandists say, meat is not intrinsically bad for you. What is bad for you is the following recent developments:
a) The advent of a largely sedentary lifestyle
b) The ready availability of large amounts of meat products.
c) The sedentary lifestyles of our meat food sources

So we evolved as omnivores who had to actively hunt wild animals to get our meat sources. That is different from today, where we eat MUCH more meat, that is fattier (better tasting) due to factory farming processes, and we exercise MUCH less. That combination is bad.

Also, we did probably evolve from herbivores. The Great apes diverged from multi gastric herbivores such as the ruminants 10's of millions of years ago. Within the great apes, we diverged from the orangutans about 12 million years ago and the gorilla about 6-8 million years ago. Both are mono gastric herbivores. Sometime around this time, either the gorillas became full time herbivores, our our branch became part time meat eaters. Homo and Pan split about 4.5-6 million years ago and every member of those branches have been omnivores.

Scientists speculate that becoming omnivorous caused our digestive system to shorten and lessen in volume. That allowed us to begin walking bipedally. Also, it is speculated that the ceacum and appendix are vestigial structures left over from our herbivore days.

As millions of people in the world have shown, being a vegetarian is a healthy lifestyle.

The question to ask is, "Why does the smell of frying bacon, or grilling steak, or braising pork shoulder trigger something primordial in my brain and make my mouth water, when the smell of sautéed or steamed vegetables does not?" Why did that evolve?

Actually, I just switched to a vegan diet (recommended by my doctor) and have had great results on weight and (way more important) my blood sugar is under control using a quarter the insulin I was before with it *not* under control.

Lentulus, good to hear about the benefits of your diet.

But I am curious as to why your MD recommended a vegan diet as opposed to a ovo-lacto vegetarian diet, or just cutting down on fatty meats and processed food. I assume you have Type II diabetes.

@Bowman – How come your mouth doesn't water at steamed asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts or sauteed onions? :)

My mouth waters at sauteed onions— because they go great with steak!

I have to agree with Parzival on this! I do like my vegetables. They just do not produce the same response.

Vegetarian I can accept, Vegan I have trouble with. Too extreme. And I agree that our lifestyle is the problem with eating meat or any other fatty foods. If people would move around more and eat less our health issues/epidemics would decrease enormously. Diabetes would fade to a statistical insignificance, back to where it used to be….

Not quite GWA.

Adult onset diabetes has been around as long as there was obesity. It's been described in the literature, but until Banting and Best, no one knew what the disease was. It was a disease of affluence such as dental decay and gout, and thereby never affected a large part of the population

Juvenile diabetes has also always been around and is independent of what one eats. It is the inability to manufacture insulin. It was also poorly understood as most sufferers died before adulthood.

The rest of your comments are spot on.