Veganism and/or RAW is an eating disorder...
I hear the "vegan diets are eating disorders" argument all the time, and I truly think it's a cheap shot and a sign of someone who clearly knows nothing about a vegan diet. People focus too much on what a vegan CAN'T eat, and not enough on what they do. Just think about all the fresh fruit, the crisp vegetables, the grains, the fiber and protein packed beans, etc, etc, etc.
But now there's more focus on this eating disorder "orthorexia". Basically, wanting to eat too healthfully is an eating disorder.
What is orthorexia? Identified in 1997 by Colorado physician Steven Bratman, MD, orthorexia is Latin for “correct eating.” Here, too, the focus isn’t on losing weight. Instead, sufferers increasingly restrict their diets to foods they consider pure, natural and healthful. Some researchers say that orthorexia may combine a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder with anxiety and warn that severely limited “healthy” diets may be a stepping stone to anorexia nervosa, the most severe - and potentially life-threatening - eating disorder.
Orthorexics: Those affected may start by eliminating processed foods, anything with artificial colorings or flavorings as well as foods that have come into contact with pesticides. Beyond that, orthorexics may also shun caffeine, alcohol, sugar, salt, wheat and dairy foods. Some limit themselves to raw foods.
Health consequences: Limiting your diet to only a few foods - because you’re a picky eater or have a long list of foods you deem unhealthy - can lead to potentially dangerous nutritional deficiencies. At its most extreme, a diet limited to only a few foods perceived to be healthy is described as orthorexia nervosa and can lead to the same emaciation and health risks seen with anorexia nervosa.
Orthorexia: Cognitive behavior therapy designed to change obsessive thought patterns regarding food is usually recommended.
Found this on Yahoo's front page. http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/new-eating-disorders-are-they-real
I nearly sh!t myself when I saw it. I'm p!ssed about it. I don't drink alcohol, I avoid artificial colorings, sweeteners, flavorings, etc. I buy organic and minimally processed foods, I don't buy or eat frozen meals, etc. But I don't believe I have an eating disorder. Today I had Kashi cereal with strawberries, almond milk, I made bread and cooked a stew using tempeh, potatoes, carrots, etc. I had tea and then made a salad loaded with beans and some ground walnuts.
I also had a teacher once tell my class that "once vegetarians go vegan, they have an eating disorder. Once you start cutting all these foods out of your diet it just means that you lack control over something in your life so you try to control what you eat to feel like you can be in control of your life. It's like cutters who self-harm, they do it so they can have some sort of control over their pain." I was ready to flip my sh!t.
Anyways, thoughts? Are you immune to this criticism, does it drive you crazy, or do you... think they have a point?
-Alika613
PS: This article doesn't speak specifically about vegans and RAW diets, but I still hear the connection enough for it to drive me up the wall.
would it still be orthorexia to be obsessed about health, while having the relatively right idea about it? like if someone ensured they got exactly 100% of every nutrient, exactly a 1:3 omega 3&6 ratio, etc every day.
I always figured that's something like what orthorexia is, but I guess it's all shades of gray if you're obsessing over what you think is healthy.
My vegetarianism is like my religion. It means a lot to me for so many different reasons and i swear, anytime i try to explain my choice for being veg, all i get back is ignorant comments and disapproval.
Wow, so true. It is not my religion per se, but certainly part of a deep spiritual interest that is, for me, quite religious - religious in the truest sense, not how it has often been perverted by organized religions.
I knew that mankind was in dire straights for a while - at the macro level all we have to do is look at all the wars around the world declared to achieve peace, economic crises getting a few mega wealthy and most poeple more poor, a court system set up to be bought by the highest bidder, etc. But I never got a true sense of the insidious nature of man until I turned veggie then esp vegan. There is such vitriol and hatred and contempt and it is collective - it is not an individual, it is bigger than the person that holds us in contempt for healthy living, because if you watch, really observe the haters you see that it is all the societal education and indoctrination and culture that is thrusting the hate toward us, as otherwise they personally seem like rational, sane (relatively) souls. Interesting dynamic to watch.
The cool thing about vegan is that it is 1 of only a few things that I truly know in my life to be right. I was like 95% certain, until I watched Earthlings a few months ago, not it is 100%. Therefore I do not want to let it go. In a world of such confusion and lies and misinformation and exploitation it is great to have something so certain.
My challenge is to always have compassion for those still beheld by lies. I was there, and not too long ago too. I understand the challeges one has to break free of it. I often fall short of this measure, I am ashamed to admit.
This guy is a raw foodist:
He just look skinny and weak. No wonder he's hiding his arms. Color me unimpressed. When vegan athletes start looking like champion bodybuilders, then I'll be impressed. It could be possible, but it would require getting at least 30% calories from protein.
We have our OWN pyramid!!
Way too much carb junk! Should be more focused on legumes and leafy vegetables, with very little grains, almost no starchy root vegetables like potatoes, and almost no fruits.
when people label fruits and veggies bad it confuses me... seriously, fruit is unhealthy? i think not
How about we base this discussion on scientific facts, and not just your intuition?
What I said was that if you eat plenty of high-protein vegetables like spinach, broccoli, kale, etc, then fruits like apples and bananas add nothing to your diet except sugar calories, which are not a particularly good source of energy compared to complex carbs, and if you don't get enough exercise those calories turn to fat.
Getting such a small fraction of your calories from protein, and such a large fraction from carbs / sugar is unhealthy in the long term, especially for physically active men.
How about we base this discussion on scientific facts, and not just your intuition?
Ok. Let's. So no one can eat until we obtain the raw results of every nutritional study, text of every scientific journal article on health, biology and nutrition ever written, every doctor's/researcher's/scientist’s opinions, every government guideline and advisory, etc, etc, etc. millions of pages and gigabytes of data out on the table, have all of us (every vegwebber? vegan? Human?) read it many times, pouring over every nuance, digging in and really dedicating our life to reviewing and uncovering every potential pitfall in the research, and come to a 100% consensus, with no voting or authority or disagreement or dissention among us.
Now then...WAIT, no food yet, hungry!! Now... we then have to cross hatch all the information about food and nutrition and biology and bio-chemistry and anthropology ever known and start to see if statistical patterns develop. In addition, we have to, each of us personally, locate every single subject of a clinical or observational study and see how their health and diet is today, testing and retesting and logging and re-logging today results. We then have to, for those who are dead, sift through all the coroner's reports to look for any nutritional related illnesses or anomalies and go BACK THROUGH ALL OUR DATA once again to see if this new information contradicts, affirms, or reaffirms anything already known, intuited, suspected, or hypothesized from our body of research and professional opinions. After all this, perhaps we can have some breakfast - a cold morning in 2025, but no lunch, greedy!! because by lunch time there are going to be thousands of more studies emerging, each with nefarious funding and varying conclusions that we will have to scour before dinner...in 2032...then by breakfast time the next day……………………………
Base this on science you say? Whose science? The livestock industry'? The governments'? Yours? Please! This is the game that the other side plays. Ignorant omnivores constantly waving their half hard scientific results around smugly singing, "Show me evidence! Here is my study! Where is your study?" For every study one side pulls out, the other side can pull out 3. So we stand around like idiots, measuring the size of our scientific conclusions, having to feed ourselves and children based on our best intuition anyway, whether you claim so or not. Available, simple, commonly digestible evidence is one thing. Anything else just sets up a system of health and nutrition based on greed and authority, which is what we have today.
You are certainly free to spend (waste?) your life that way, running around in circles like a caged squirrel for years looking for a conclusive, objective, unbiased study, with the 100% chiseled in stone by a 100% unarguable creator of the universe the 100% absolute definitive dietary mandate. But my life is too valuable to me to spend it that way. I eat for fuel so that I can enjoy life.
Sorry dude, fruits are glorious and nutritious and healthy and I am eating and I recommend them to AmyMyLove or anyone else, in abundance, any time, anywhere in the world, until my health, body, consciousness, or conscience indicates to me *in no uncertain terms* something to the contrary. Got enough time and money to prove me wrong? Go for it though, and please let me know what you find - when it is 100% (blah blah blah from above); but I will eat and enjoy whole fruits and grains until then, thanks! ;o)
ETA: BTW, scientists use intuition derived methods *all* the time. They call it fancier names: extrapolation, educated guesses, approximation, hypothesizing, estimation, etc. They won't admit that this "guesswork," largely based on hunches and intuition and at times ever personal bias or research funding bias, makes up *most* of all known "science" in this universe, but it in fact does.
Peace.
Ok. Let's. So no one can eat until we obtain the raw results of every nutritional study, text of every scientific journal article on health, biology and nutrition ever written, every doctor's/researcher's/scientist’s opinions, every government guideline and advisory, etc, etc, etc. millions of pages and gigabytes of data out on the table, have all of us (every vegwebber? vegan? Human?) read it many times, pouring over every nuance, digging in and really dedicating our life to reviewing and uncovering every potential pitfall in the research, and come to a 100% consensus, with no voting or authority or disagreement or dissention among us.
Now then...WAIT, no food yet, hungry!! Now... we then have to cross hatch all the information about food and nutrition and biology and bio-chemistry and anthropology ever known and start to see if statistical patterns develop. In addition, we have to, each of us personally, locate every single subject of a clinical or observational study and see how their health and diet is today, testing and retesting and logging and re-logging today results. We then have to, for those who are dead, sift through all the coroner's reports to look for any nutritional related illnesses or anomalies and go BACK THROUGH ALL OUR DATA once again to see if this new information contradicts, affirms, or reaffirms anything already known, intuited, suspected, or hypothesized from our body of research and professional opinions. After all this, perhaps we can have some breakfast - a cold morning in 2025, but no lunch, greedy!! because by lunch time there are going to be thousands of more studies emerging, each with nefarious funding and varying conclusions that we will have to scour before dinner...in 2032...then by breakfast time the next day……………………………
Base this on science you say? Whose science? The livestock industry'? The governments'? Yours? Please! This is the game that the other side plays. Ignorant omnivores constantly waving their half hard scientific results around smugly singing, "Show me evidence! Here is my study! Where is your study?" For every study one side pulls out, the other side can pull out 3. So we stand around like idiots, measuring the size of our scientific conclusions, having to feed ourselves and children based on our best intuition anyway, whether you claim so or not. Available, simple, commonly digestible evidence is one thing. Anything else just sets up a system of health and nutrition based on greed and authority, which is what we have today.
You are certainly free to spend (waste?) your life that way, running around in circles like a caged squirrel for years looking for a conclusive, objective, unbiased study, with the 100% chiseled in stone by a 100% unarguable creator of the universe the 100% absolute definitive dietary mandate. But my life is too valuable to me to spend it that way. I eat for fuel so that I can enjoy life.
Sorry dude, fruits are glorious and nutritious and healthy and I am eating and I recommend them to AmyMyLove or anyone else, in abundance, any time, anywhere in the world, until my health, body, consciousness, or conscience indicates to me *in no uncertain terms* something to the contrary. Got enough time and money to prove me wrong? Go for it though, and please let me know what you find - when it is 100% (blah blah blah from above); but I will eat and enjoy whole fruits and grains until then, thanks! ;o)
ETA: BTW, scientists use intuition derived methods *all* the time. They call it fancier names: extrapolation, educated guesses, approximation, hypothesizing, estimation, etc. They won't admit that this "guesswork," largely based on hunches and intuition and at times ever personal bias or research funding bias, makes up *most* of all known "science" in this universe, but it in fact does.
Peace.
Next to Politicalmonty, you're the most awesome person alive.
:)>>> :)>>> :)>>>
Ok. Let's. So no one can eat until we obtain the raw results of every nutritional study, text of every scientific journal article on health, biology and nutrition ever written, every doctor's/researcher's/scientist’s opinions, every government guideline and advisory, etc, etc, etc. millions of pages and gigabytes of data out on the table, have all of us (every vegwebber? vegan? Human?) read it many times, pouring over every nuance, digging in and really dedicating our life to reviewing and uncovering every potential pitfall in the research, and come to a 100% consensus, with no voting or authority or disagreement or dissention among us.
Now then...WAIT, no food yet, hungry!! Now... we then have to cross hatch all the information about food and nutrition and biology and bio-chemistry and anthropology ever known and start to see if statistical patterns develop. In addition, we have to, each of us personally, locate every single subject of a clinical or observational study and see how their health and diet is today, testing and retesting and logging and re-logging today results. We then have to, for those who are dead, sift through all the coroner's reports to look for any nutritional related illnesses or anomalies and go BACK THROUGH ALL OUR DATA once again to see if this new information contradicts, affirms, or reaffirms anything already known, intuited, suspected, or hypothesized from our body of research and professional opinions. After all this, perhaps we can have some breakfast - a cold morning in 2025, but no lunch, greedy!! because by lunch time there are going to be thousands of more studies emerging, each with nefarious funding and varying conclusions that we will have to scour before dinner...in 2032...then by breakfast time the next day……………………………
Base this on science you say? Whose science? The livestock industry'? The governments'? Yours? Please! This is the game that the other side plays. Ignorant omnivores constantly waving their half hard scientific results around smugly singing, "Show me evidence! Here is my study! Where is your study?" For every study one side pulls out, the other side can pull out 3. So we stand around like idiots, measuring the size of our scientific conclusions, having to feed ourselves and children based on our best intuition anyway, whether you claim so or not. Available, simple, commonly digestible evidence is one thing. Anything else just sets up a system of health and nutrition based on greed and authority, which is what we have today.
You are certainly free to spend (waste?) your life that way, running around in circles like a caged squirrel for years looking for a conclusive, objective, unbiased study, with the 100% chiseled in stone by a 100% unarguable creator of the universe the 100% absolute definitive dietary mandate. But my life is too valuable to me to spend it that way. I eat for fuel so that I can enjoy life.
Sorry dude, fruits are glorious and nutritious and healthy and I am eating and I recommend them to AmyMyLove or anyone else, in abundance, any time, anywhere in the world, until my health, body, consciousness, or conscience indicates to me *in no uncertain terms* something to the contrary. Got enough time and money to prove me wrong? Go for it though, and please let me know what you find - when it is 100% (blah blah blah from above); but I will eat and enjoy whole fruits and grains until then, thanks! ;o)
ETA: BTW, scientists use intuition derived methods *all* the time. They call it fancier names: extrapolation, educated guesses, approximation, hypothesizing, estimation, etc. They won't admit that this "guesswork," largely based on hunches and intuition and at times ever personal bias or research funding bias, makes up *most* of all known "science" in this universe, but it in fact does.
Peace.
Next to Politicalmonty, you're the most awesome person alive.
:)>>> :)>>> :)>>>
I agree! If I werent taken I would pursue charlie myself...
BTW I just had a huge bowl of banana, mango, coconut, flaxmeal for breakfast. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! ;D
Awww, I have a fan club. :)>>> I thought I would be chastized for troll baiting, but I once again underestimated the awesomeness of vegwebbers ;)
I have been eating about 5 or more bananas per day. Hey at summer prices of like $.40 per pound they are economical and the fuel they provide seems legit (I stole "legit" from AML). Plus 3 apples per day, 2 oranges, grapes, strawberries, appricots, etc. There are SO many vitamins and nutrients in fruits that it seems inconcievable to eliminate them. Also the carb + fiber combo they provide is fantastic. In fact, if I had to choose today, I would pick fruits over veggies, although not without remorse.
I have been eating about 5 or more bananas per day... the fuel they provide seems legit (I stole "legit" from AML).
<3 that made me smile on this not so smiley day, thanks :)
Awww, I have a fan club. :)>>> I thought I would be chastized for troll baiting, but I once again underestimated the awesomeness of vegwebbers ;)
I have been eating about 5 or more bananas per day. Hey at summer prices of like $.40 per pound they are economical and the fuel they provide seems legit (I stole "legit" from AML). Plus 3 apples per day, 2 oranges, grapes, strawberries, appricots, etc. There are SO many vitamins and nutrients in fruits that it seems inconcievable to eliminate them. Also the carb + fiber combo they provide is fantastic. In fact, if I had to choose today, I would pick fruits over veggies, although not without remorse.
Feeding trolls and baiting is one thing. But passing on legit information to others is awesome because lots of people read this thread and may believe the "carbs/fruit are bad" myth. So keep being too legit to quit.
AML is awesome...and she quit saying "that tastes like ass". LOL
AML is awesome...and she quit saying "that tastes like ass". LOL
awwwww, just for you my hottie tweets <3
:)>>> :)>>> :)>>>
I saw this article when it was on yahoo, as well. Like some of you, I too have struggled with anorexia. I consider myself, "recovered." (I use "" because I have found that what that word means varies from person to person. Recovery, like the disease itself, is a very individual and personalized experience.)
As was mentioned earlier in this thread, anyone who would classify vegans or even raw foodists as having an eating disorder is out of there mind, and clearly does not understand what eating disorders are really about.
An anorexic or bulimic does not have food issues. They use food to mask, distract, or express their issues. Binging/purging and eating/starving is not the problem. It is one symptom that there is a problem.
Throughout the height of my eating disorder days, I was not a vegan, or a vegetarian. I just didn't eat (and compulsively exercised for hours every day). I was not driven by a desire to be healthy and nourished. I was driven by the need to deny myself nourishment. For 8 years I starved myself, quite literally nearly to death. Learning to choose my foods based on their nutritional content vs. their calories/fat/carbs, etc., has been life-changing. Eliminating foods that were hindering my health, such as processed foods, and animal products has taken me to the next level of recovering. Foods that had lived on the "do not eat" list for more than half my life now feel acceptable because I understand what it is and what isn't going to do for me, nutritionally. For the first time in 18 years, I will be having a cake for my birthday this year... an organic, vegan cake, but a cake. That is HUGE.
I no longer obsessively exercise. Well into my recovery period, I was at the gym, intensely working out for two-plus hours at least 6 days per week, and was still horribly unsatisfied and repulsed with myself. After discovering 4 severely degenerative discs in my back, that all came to a screeching halt, and I was forced to find another way to deal with my thoughts/feelings/issues, etc. I had pretty major back surgery a couple months ago, and have done nothing more vigorous than walking and stretching since....and I have been more than okay with it. Most surprising of all (at least, to me), I have become happier with my appearance, and have found maintaining it to be far easier than I'd ever imagined. I truly believe that feeding myself nutritionally dense foods has lead to a better understanding of myself and why I do/did certain things, which has allowed me to make better choices. In many ways, veganism has lead to a greater mental clarity, and a level of spiritual peacefulness that I had never been able to reach before.
Yes, it can be used to hide one's true emotional state, and disordered eating behaviors, but to classify an entire group only by their food choices and not the intentions behind those choices is ignorant, irresponsible, and dangerous.
^ wow amazing story! i'm sorry you went through all that but am so happy for you now <3
^ wow amazing story! i'm sorry you went through all that but am so happy for you now <3
Thank you :-) I would never want anyone to go through it, now that I am where I am, I am grateful because I have a true appreciation for the human body and what it can survive.
Eating a meat based diet is an eating disorder.
Eating a meat based diet is an eating disorder.
love it!
Others act like I'm a crazy idiot who doesn't know basic things like... the Food Pyramid... ummmm, for one, I know very few omnis who follow it, or even eat a diet remotely resembling it. I know I'm eating better now than I ever did on an omni diet, but they just can't accept it. It makes me so angry and frustrated that their minds are so closed, that they are so blind, and so self-serving. They're so wrong, but convinced that they are right. It's sick.
Rant over. Wow. that felt good to get off my chest.
We have our OWN pyramid!!
Oh, hey. I just link the pic...but I think they sell posters of it and stuff. If that's not cool to link let me know.
ETA: its a free-to-download and distribute non-commercially poster too!!
*distributes!!*
http://veganfoodpyramid.com/images/vegan-pyramid-1024x768.jpg
I just thought I'd point out that a lot of the pictures in the "vegetable" section of that pyramid are actually fruits, not vegetables. It also looks like there is an ear of corn under vegetables. Why should we follow a vegan food pyramid if it doesn't even accurately categorize it's food groups.
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