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<p>According to the article, there are also epigenetic effects, where someone starved in the womb and as an infant adapts to food shortage with insulin resistant muscles and fat, leaving more glucose for the brain. But when food is plentiful, the insulin resistance remains, resulting in diabetes despite not having BMI obesity (although “normal weight obesity” or “skinny fat”, a condition where someone in the normal weight range has a high percentage of body fat, may exist).</p>
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<p>They actually don’t anymore, at last in the US. The ingredients changed around a year ago.</p>
<p>I’m a vegan/ nutritarian. There is a big difference between being a non meat eater and vegan/ vegetarian. I find many people who claim to be vegetarians eat way too much carbs, not healthy diets. But many of us chose this lifestyle for health reasons. Eating a plant based diet has fantastic health benefits. I have lost weight, my blood values are excellent and I haven’t felt this good or clear headed in years. The vegans I know have made clear choices and eat nutritionally dense foods that are whole and not made with garbage. I am aware of what I put into my body. If done right, we get plenty of proteins. If you do eat meat, it should be used as a garnishment, not a main portion of a meal. If anyone is interested, Dr. Furhman has a load of YouTube video lectures on the a nutritarian lifestyle as well as lots if research on the consumption of meats, processed foods, etc. he also wrote a book, “Eat to Live.” Excellent material.</p>
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<p>Yes, of course. Though I’ve never understood why someone who eats animal products is called a “vegetarian.”</p>
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<p>Vegans don’t eat any animal products, including meat, fish, dairy, eggs and honey.
Vegetarians don’t eat any meat or fish, but do eat stuff that is derived from animals without directly killing them. </p>
<p>It’s just a difference in terminology.</p>
<p>^^^^^^Yes, I understand all that, it just never made sense to me to call oneself a vegetarian when one could still consume quite a lot of animal products.</p>
<p>The difference is we don’t eat actual animals, just their products. I’m not sure why that’s difficult to understand.</p>
<p>Well at least I am confident, since I don’t eat meat, that I’m not being scammed into eating horse. I’ve been watching the scandal in the UK with absolute, unabashed horror.</p>
<p>Zoos, there are countries where horse meat is considered a delicacy. As my D’s fiend said, “Here in Kazakhstan people would be furious if they found beef in their horsemeat patties!” :)</p>
<p>There is good reason I do not buy ground meat (and pre-cut melons). :)</p>
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<p>What I can’t understand is people who call themselves vegetarians who still eat fish!</p>
<p>Fish I can almost, ALMOST, understand. It’s the ones who say"I’m a vegetarian but I still eat chicken" that makes my brain want to explode. </p>
<p>Erm um what???</p>
<p>^I had a colleague who called herself a vegetarian but ate fish and chicken! completely mystifying!</p>
<p>But Nrdsb4–Lacto/ovo-consuming vegetarians they call themselves vegetarians because that’s the common definition of vegetarian. It is not defined as “just eats vegetables”–or else grains, fruits, nuts, etc. would also be out.</p>
<p>Vegetarians often eat products created by animals, but not animals killed for food. Vegans don’t. These are simple definitions that are well accepted.</p>
<p>Question to vegans: do you also make sure that the plant food you eat was not grown with animal-derived fertilizers? I’m just curious.</p>
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<p>I’m a pescetarian. I know I’m a pescetarian. But unfortunately, nobody else ever understands the term (especially in the catering industry), so it is far, far simpler to just say ‘I’m a vegetarian, except I eat fish’.</p>
<p>Exactly, Boomting! I understand that I am a pescetarian too (for right now), but it’s very impractical to explain that. Most events that I go to (for work or social) that are catered will have a meat option or a vegetarian option. It’s easier to say you are a vegetarian, to stay on the safe side, especially since I personally also don’t eat crab, shrimp lobster, etc. - basically, all I eat is literally just fish and mussles/clams/oysters. Rather than explain all that (or say I am a pescetarian and end up with a shripmp or lobster option), I stick with saying I am a vegetarian.</p>
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<p>Just curious, for those vegans out there. What is your reason for being vegan? I am particularly interested in the “dairy, eggs, and honey” part. I just recently saw the documentary “Forks over Knives” and one of the take aways for me was that Cow milk is bad for humans. Are you choosing vegan because of animal cruelty reasons, health reasons, or … some other reason?</p>
<p>And then there are the Jainists who (for religious reasons) are vegans who also don’t eat any plant where harvesting it results in its death (no carrots, onions, garlic, etc.).</p>
<p>Jainism hails from India and I wonder if there any plants there that are edible that are also considered “annuals”. For example, do they have something like sunflowers where they can eat the seeds even though the flower dies - because it’s going to die no matter what when it’s season has ended.</p>
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<p>Yes, that makes sense. I was thinking of sort of upper/middle class Indians when I wrote that, though. Granted, my experience is based on ex-pats, but I think a fairly sedentary lifestyle (walking in an Indian city, beyond your street is insane and the infrastructure for biking is terrible) + food that’s too oily because it’s quicker to make and tastes better + less emphasis on eating well results in obesity and being overweight. This is speculation, of course 
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<p>Something similar was noticed in the Netherlands, where people who were fetuses during [World</a> War II food shortages of 1944](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944]World”>Dutch famine of 1944–1945 - Wikipedia) had a greater tendency toward obesity and other health problems compared to others.</p>
<p>The food shortage also exposed wheat as the aggravator in celiac disease.</p>
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<p>Not a vegan, but my D1 was for several years, which made our lives interesting, to say the least. Her rationale went entirely to animal cruelty. For dairy, it’s pretty straightforward: the only way you get a cow or sheep or goat to give milk (the foundation for all dairy products, including cheese, yogurt, butter, etc), is to get it pregnant, have it give birth which starts the lactation process, then separate it from its offspring and continue to milk it. It’s an ancient technology, but we really haven’t improved on it in probably several thousand years. From there, two problems, as D1 saw it. First, just the act of separating the mother from its infant involves some level of cruelty to both mother and infant. Cows will bellow, calves will whine; it’s “unnatural” and clearly causes distress to the animals (which we can acknowledge without anthropomorphizing them). More importantly, about half the offspring are males, most of which are surplus as far as the dairy farmer is concerned (because one healthy adult male can impregnate almost unlimited numbers of females), and most of the male offspring will be slaughtered for meat. A large fraction of the females will be kept around as the next generation of milk-producers, but depending on economic factors, even some of the females may be slaughtered. Females are also slaughtered when they’re no longer of reproductive age. Bottom line, production of milk and derivative dairy products requires the systematic slaughter of animals, especially young males and older females, so (D1 reasoned) if you consume dairy, you’ve got blood on your hands no less than if you actually eat the meat of the slaughtered animals. Good argument, actually, if you accept the premise that it’s wrong to slaughter animals.</p>
<p>The economy of chickens is different and perhaps slightly more complicated, but it comes down to much the same thing: if you raise chickens to produce eggs, you end up with a surplus of young males and old females who need to be slaughtered to make the economics work, so if you eat eggs you’re buying into the systematic slaughter of chickens. OK, I follow the argument, though again it depends on the crucial premise that slaughtering animals is morally wrong.</p>
<p>Honey I never understood, That just seemed like a hard-line, dogmatic position: “I won’t eat animal products and honey is an animal product, therefore I won’t eat honey.” The animal cruelty rationale was never explained to me.</p>
<p>Fortunately, D1 decided to go lacto-ovo when she went to college, which vastly simplified her life. She finds ample protein sources in milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, etc., which she supplements with fresh fruit, cruciferous vegetables, and copious amounts of high-fiber vegetable products like lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, and on and on. Her diet is high in protein, high in fiber, high in iron and other vital minerals and nutrients, but low in carbs and low in saturated fats. She is, in fact, about the most intentional and disciplined health-conscious eater I know.</p>
<p>Could I join her on that path? Well, maybe, but I’m not sure I share her self-discipline; I easily give in to the occasional craving for a good burger or a nice steak, and I just love the taste of chicken and fish which I have a hard time relegating to the “unhealthy” category, because I think in fact they can be easily incorporated into a healthy, balanced, nutritionally ample diet.</p>