Is Vegetarianism Better for Weight Loss and Heart Health?

In the four months I have lived in Asia now I have dropped 20 pounds, lost three inches on my waist line, seen my blood pressure drop from a consistant 145/90 to 120/65, and where I used to have chronic GERD problems I have seen that disappear.

I think a low fat, low suger, low salt diet makes all the difference in the world, and the food in Asia meets all that. There are very few over weight people here compared to the US..

What are you eating? Fish? Rice?

!

Very, very little beef. Zero pork (Malaysia is Islamic). No American fast food, lots of chicken, fish, rice, and vegetables. Very little cheese.

That's interesting. I wish I didn't love beef so much.

I grew up on a beef ranch in Alberta and was thus spoiled with the best of the best as a kid. I suppose this beef-snobbery has made me very picky so now, in a land of 'crumby' beef (Quebec Canada) I find my self indulging rarely and only when the pickings are very good.

I will vouch for the differences in diet making a difference. While back in my beef-rich environment, it was only a generation ago that everything anyone ate was what they raised or grew during the summer. In a nutshell: beef, carrots, potatoes, peas and green beans. Few other veggies would grow at the high altitude during the short growing season. Since getting married to a lovely cook from switzerland my cholesterol levels have dropped and I find myself eating a lot more variety.

Most 'fast-food' variety foods should be outlawed. Most street vendors cooking something fresh produce a better product than these dime-a-dozen fast food joints.

Hi Bone Crusher - Your story reminded me of seeing my own dad in the hospital, 2001, undergoing open-heart surgery - chest broken open, ashen-skin. Talk about a wake-up call! As an electronic music fan, been meaning to visit Moby's vegan cafe in NYC some time: https://www.teany.com/story - maybe I'll take my little one. One more downer-cow TV story, and I'm giving up the meat. Many thanks for sharing your personal story. - Larry

Interesting article.

In college, I was challenged to go vegetarian for Lent. It was a bit harder than I expected at first. However, by the end of the 40 days, I had lost weight and just generally "felt lighter" - if that makes sense. Even though I did go back to eating meat, eating vegetarian for that short amount of time really allowed me to try different, healthier foods than before. Many times now, I eat the vegetable sides of a meal before I even touch the meat.

Thank you for sharing! I look forward to next week's installment.

Hi Jaxy - I grew up with meat, but after seeing Fast Food Nation w/ Greg Kinnear, I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth. "Organic" meats from small, quality producers, where the animals are treated well before slaughter, may be the middle ground, for those like me having a tough time giving up a life-time habit. This would require me to get back in touch with my local butcher, like we used to have in Troy and Albany way back in the 60's and 70's. - Larry

The large scale factory farms or concentrated/confined animal feeding operations (CAFO) produce enormous amounts of waste (manure) and have contaminated water supplies in several areas. In CAFOs, the animals are confined or concentrated to maximize meat production.

When Grass Feeds on Sheep

EPA's factsheet on CAFOs

I live in Japan and i sometimes go shopping at the American base what surprised me was the size of portion of food you buy it is all larger portions. even the burger-king on the base size are like twice the Japanese sizes a large coke in Japanese is a medium in the American burger-king. people should eat healthy but also eat smaller portions (i keep my junk-food visits only to a few times a month)

That is what I noticed as well. I went to TGI Fridays for dinner one night and was amazed at how much food they served, and then doubly amazed as how salty it was..

Smaller portion size makes a lot of difference as well.

Hi Epke - Saw a great documentary movie on this topic, back in '04: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersize_Me_(2004_film).

The director/primary subject of this film allowed his own body to become an experiment in a non-stop, 1-month diet of nothing but junk fast food - brave guy!

It must be said, the fast-food restaurants here have been offering healthier food since the late 90's, when portion sizes grew out-of-control - I think partly in reaction to this movie and similar public outcries.

Also, I feel there's much I can continue to personally learn from the Asian diet. To start, I need to find a better quality wok for cooking vegetables - my last one rusted out, even with proper care. :(

- Larry

I saw that, great movie(documentary), but i still eat junkfood sometimes it tastes so good (i am weak) it just needs to be done in moderation, biggest enemy is Sugar! lots of food have sugar in and esppeccialy Soda drinks are full of sugar if you cut back on those it allready helps a lot.

Hi,

this is not a question of vegetarian or not but a question of avoiding too much of bad food.

Some fast food is ok., some bad fat also.

But too much will kill you too early.

Same with extreme vegetarians: they lack a lot of necessary stuff found only in meat or other protein sources.

Good reading to deepen your insights:

Heinrich: Starch Madness

Cunnane: Survival of the fattest

Sears: The Omega Rx-Zone

I try to do my best with food, sometimes I am successful.

RHABE

I think the body is an excellent self-regulatory system;
all one has to do is "listen" to your own body.

It will immediately tell you when you have had enough;
or when something disagrees with you, etc.

On this basis, one can remain naturally healthy and of
reasonable weight, consistent with age. (and life use)

Naturally, if one is persuaded by "attractive" smells or tastes
e.g. like chocolate (which is a preservative) or frys (fats -
some of which are essential to the body) to consume excessive
amounts (of anything) the body (you) will suffer a penalty.
(obvious when its too much alcohol; or one throws up!)

If a pot belly or over-weight frame is to be avoided only eat
when you're hungry - listen to your body. Eat what you need
(not what you desire, yes the body will tell you, "I feel like..")
in amounts that your body can appreciate; and, help your body
with regular exercise. (also "requested" by the body)
e.g. it tells you to "stand up" and stretch your legs, etc.

To be "in tune" with, and listen to, the body, is all it takes.
(Make mine another pie and pint please.)

jt.

I don't smoke, nor drink, eat too much food, or go with women,
and have lived for 70 years. - Do you call THAT living!

I am not a vegetarian but yes eating the right foods contributes to weight loss & better health. I have taken bets on losing weight eating just candy bars and easily won. By changing diet & exercise I lost 53# in 5 months. However I know a lot of vegetarians who look ill and have no energy. I believe it is eating right portions and exercise. Basically a diabetic diet.

No, that is not living buddy! Everything you mention gives you life...but only in maderation

I visit other forums all the time and sometimes there's debating forums over vegans and meat eaters.

I did some research so I can throw in my two cents and came across an artical written by a medica doctor that was also vegetarian and he stated that there is no difference health wise between a vegetarian diet and an omnivorous diet.

He stated that people are vegetarians due to ethical and percieved health reasons.

All the medical and health professionals that I've encountered promote cutting back on red meat to less then twice a week and promote eating fish at least three times a week.

All of them promote eating fruits and vegetables five times a day.

The latest I've heard is from our company's wellness counselor is to cut back on the white foods, ie, White rice, white meat potatoes and white sugars and white flour products. Basically the starchy foods. I'm not talking about radishes and turnips.

She said that sweet potatoes are good for you and encouraged eating more of them.

I have seen several replies about how people have lost weight when they moved to Asian countries and adopted some of their eating habits. According to a World Health Organization article: Global Burden of coronary heart disease, the reverse is also true, "…Risk of heart attack can change when people migrate. Japan has a low rate of coronary heart disease, but after moving to the USA, Japanese people have been found to have a gradually increasing risk. This eventually approaches that of people born in the USA." "More than 60% of the global burden of coronary heart disease occurs in developed countries.", according to the same article. North America has some of the fattest people, 60% of us are overweight or obese, and it is killing us because obesity is a major heart disease risk factor and heart disease is the most common killer. Unfortunately, the non-industriallized world is slowly adopting many of our bad habits while we are slowly learning, changing and/or developing medicines to counteract our poor lifestyle choices – see Civilization Kills: Worldwide Deaths Rate from Coronary Heart Disease .

After a review of the data in the chart below from Food and Agriculture Statistics Global Outlook published by UN's Food and Agriculture Orgnaization, it is no wonder why heart disease is a leading cause of death in "developed" countries (U.S., Europe, etc.) because we tend to eat way more "bad" foods such as meat, oils/fats and sugars/sweets combined with lower consumption of good foods like grains/cereals and fruits/veggies/roots.

The World Health Organization's and U.S.'s CDC produced The Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke website, which contains facts on heart disease and heart disease risk factors as well as their distributions across the globe. Here are some additional short one page PDFs from the site:

Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors
Risk Factor: Obesity
Risk Factors: Lipids
Prevention: Personal Choices and Actions

I am sorry I did not receive any comments on my comment No.13. I would like to add further that during my visit to U.S.A I observed people eating and eating at any hour of day or night. Eating burger while driving, eating in offices while working, eating in colleges while giving lectures or listening lectures. May be being cold seasons there is lot of hunger in human body which makes you to eat more and more. I would suggest to restrict this eating habit by eating at fix hours like morning breakfast, light lunch, some snacks in afternoon and final dinner.Menu can be worked out by individual choices.

Eating every 2 hours increases ones metabolism but that means small portions not supersized "junk-food company name here" menu. I always funny that some obese people sued fast food companies because they are fat.

How about stop eating so much! Do the other activity that excersices and is more rewarding (but needs some protection though) i mean home improvement off course.

Hi Epke,

I know you are not obese. Do you control your eating habits?.Do you regularly do ecercise?.If you do it is good for you and you can maintain your figuare.

Food habits are constantly changing. The type of food that we eat to day whether prepared at home or outside is definetly much different from what we were eating some decades ago. Food we eat today is very rich in fat and sugar and very low in fibre. The amount of physical activity one undergoes today is reduced to a minimum. We have washing machines,dish washers,vacuum cleaners at home. Even in the office most people sit for hours in one place. To go to a shop just 100 mertes away, we take our bike or car instead of walking. Many of us spend our spare time in watching TV and eating junk food .

The main reason for obesity can be attributed to lack of physical activity, genetical make up of an individual and the amount of calorie packed food intake in a day.

Being a veg or a non-veg is an individual's choice.Dairy products are generally considered as vegetarian, but they are very high in cholesteral compared to meat.Plant food is definetly superior as there are less strain on our system to digest and assimilate.

people who do hard labour can have the liberty to eat anything , but others who lead sedantary lfe should restrict their food habits to avoid health problems.

The reason I would fail as a Vegetarian.....Bacon

Good cigars, whiskey, beef, pork, egg fried in deep bacon grease chewing tobacco and chasing women killed my great grandfather at 97 years of age.

What did he do different. None of his food was "fast" or processed. Organic food and drink not because it was designed but they were self sufficient. Even his Tobacco was minimally processed plug. His bacon was smoked in his smoke house. No Chemicals, No Hormones, No pesticides, and an active life style.

All of his fruit and vegetables were fresh or home canned. Milk was raw and eggs from the coup out back. No chemical fertilizers or additives. He lived in an obscure alpine valley with little population.

At the moment I don't have the means to live that life style and my body tells me so.

Brad

Garbage in Garbage out. many modern chemicals (and some natural) are refined and concentrated in the food chain. The lower on the food chain you eat the less concentration of these chemicals you receive.

If your meat is fed less undesirable chemicals then you in turn get less. The same with your plants you eat.

Also if your diet is devoid of elements it needs then it can not function to best performance.

When burned on a significant portion of my body ($200 worth of bandages per day fifteen years ago) I healed in half the time the doctors and staff said I could. Discounted their own pictures and notes, then acted like I was some type of scammer but couldn't seem to find a motive.

I tried to explain the nutritional aspect but it fell on deaf ears. (last I checked Doctors had the highest rates of heart attacks of any profession)

Brad

The problem with the movie Supersize Me is that a lot of people took it as proof that fast food was unhealthy (Spurlock's intention?), don't eat fast food and maybe even legally restrict it. However, if you ate expensive fine restaurant food just as often you would get the same health risks, yet activists in the USA are not pushing for similar legal controls on those restaurants. It is the amount of food and lack of exercise that is the problem.

I guess I am concerned that the movie leads you to draw the wrong conclusion, as so many "documentaries" (e.g. Al Gore and Michael Moore movies) should not be taken at face value but put into a new category, say "advocacy" or "propaganda."

rutleddc i see a small flaw in your logic,expensive fine restaurant means expensive thus the change that you eat there more often is less. while at MacDonald's you can eat more for the same amount of money.

And what the government says should be taken at face values, these documentaries often show things that the government does not want people to know, the problem is that some directors over-dramatize.

At least it gives you a view on the subject from another direction

Epke,

I want documentaries that give different viewpoints, especially important to balance government power. My problem is that so many of these pseudo documentaries are violating the scientific principle of seeking the truth regardless of whether you like the results. They are instead pursuing a political/social agenda and presenting only facts that support their views, or even worth half-truths, omissions, and lies. To me the latter approach is morally unethical.

The liberal viewpoint in the USA is too find fast food distasteful, so it is slammed all the time. However, the left believes in very loose sexuality and the old term "anything goes." Even though that results in as many if not more horrible health consequences such as STDs, HIV, broken homes, illegitimate children, and teen single motherhood, you never see a documentary that slams promiscuity winning awards. It seems to be all about advocacy and politics now, not the search for truth.

I do not like fast food personally, but it is the preferred alternative to my parents generation before WWII where getting enough calories per day was a challenge.

I agree, but is it not a reaction against the (corporate)Government propaganda?

In Europa i have seen a lot of documentaries, but i never heard people say they are propaganda, only sometimes biased, and untruths are quickly uncovered by critical media.

The main advantage of living in Europe IMOH is that you automatically get a lot viewpoints from the different nations news agencies so we can see quickly if a something has been censored or propagandized by the press, e.g the war in Iraq is/was reported differently from European news agencies than the American news agencies.

I liked supersize me it showed that Junk-food was bad food if you eat too much of it, it was a simple message, it seems that common sense is hard to find these days so these over the top documentaries (because of Hollywood?) are needed to bring the message home.

The coming term for these agenda driven pieces of piss-poor science is mock-umentary because they make a mockery of science.

So to a large degree do articles like this - too little science abstracted into too simple guidelines result in frequent results the researchers wouldn't recognize.

Citing the FDA does nothing to allay my fears, these are the same people who equate carbs and sugars as equivalent nutritionally because carbs are transformed into sugars. Again overly simplistic and caused such an uproar in every science community that the latest food pyramid had to be recalled as obviously flawed even to modern man.

Can veganism be better for your heart - Maybe is probably the best you can answer due to the inherent complexity of the question - but there is a lot of money to be made offering "answers" instead of science. Given that diet cannot be experimentally controlled over periods of lifetime while also finding a way to rule out genetics makes such studies very difficult.

Overlooked in all of these articles, but briefly cited by one of the previous posters - feedlot beef and range beef are almost entirely different nutritionally. Range beef are never surveyed except in obscure articles rarely cited.

But the moment demand is created for "range beef" the industry will screw that up just like free range chickens.