response 1 of 32:

Jun 14 00:09 UTC 1993

Are you saying the Seventh Day Adventists are ovo-lacto vegetarians?
Did they not also give birth to the Branch Davidians?

response 3 of 32:

Jul 5 02:51 UTC 1993

(warning: long response)

I once talked to a vegetarian Seventh Day Adventist.  She said her
religion asks her to keep herself healthy, including eating well.
I asked if the religion requires her to follow a specific diet,
like the way Judaism asks people to keep Kosher, or do the rules
simply say "eat well according to the latest nutritional thinking?"
I'm about 90% sure she said the rules say to follow the latest
nutritional thinking.

The current issue of Nutrition Action Healthletter, published by the Center
for Science in the Public Interest, is mostly about whether protein is good
or bad for you.  They discuss protein in relation to several health
problems.  Here's the Osteoporosis section of the article.
----------
Osteoporosis:
Could eating large amounts of protein weaken your bones by leaching
calcium out of them?

In his book _The McDougal Plan_, physician John McDougall claims that the
American appetite for meat produces "calcium-deficient bones that break
with the slightest provocation, such as a sneeze..."

And, adds John Robbins in his _Diet for a New America_, "...the promotion
of [protein-rich] dairy products as an answer [to osteoporosis]... seems to
me to be not only self-serving, but even criminal."

This kind of talk understandably alarms _Nutrition Action_ readers like
Dorothy Wolf of Alto, Michigan.

"Help!" she writes.  "I'm getting conflicting information.  I'd like to
know if I and my daughter should be cutting back on dairy products in order
to increase our bone mass and ward off osteoporosis."

No, you shouldn't.  Mcdougall and Robbins are exaggerating.

It's true that as you eat more protein (both animal and plant), your
kidneys filter more calcium out of your blood and into your urine.

But the amount of calcium you lose isn't as great as researchers once
thought.  And it's possible that, at some point, your body adapts and you
stop losing calcium.

When John Anderson of the University of North Carolina recently fed people
extra dairy protein, within a few hours after the meal they had lost 10 to
20 mg of calcium... the amount you'd find in a tablespoon of milk.

What's more, studies such as this one seldom last more than two weeks.
That's far too short a time to see whether the body eventually adapts to
large amounts of protein by conserving its calcium, according to Mona
Calvo, an osteoporosis expert at the Food and Drug Administration.

In the meantime, there is little evidence that regularly eating large
amounts of protein, whether plant or animal, increases the risk of
osteoporosis.  If it did, we would expect vegetarians -- who generally eat
less protein than meat-eaters -- to have stronger bones.

Although that was the conclusion of a 1980 study, more recent studies
failed to show less osteoporosis among vegetarians.

It's true that countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis (the United
States and Sweeden, for example) consume the most protein and calcium.

"But that doesn't mean the protein and calcium are causing the
osteoporosis," points out Mark Hegsted, a former Harvard School of Public
Health professor who has researched the link between calcium and
osteoporosis.  "It could be something else in their diet or lifestyle."

As for drinking milk and eating other calcium-rich dairy products, there's
no need to worry about their protein cancelling out their calcium, say
Calvo and Anderson.  The large surplus of calcium in dairy products easily
outweighs any small losses of the mineral which might occur because of
their protein.

The dairy industry, as you might imagine, has sponsored a good deal of
research in this area.  In one of the best studies, Daniel Baran of the
University of Massachusetts Medical School gave women in their 30s and 40s
dairy foods containing 500 mg a day of calcium.  That's the equivalent of
two cups of milk.  After three years, the women had lost no calcium from
their spines, unlike women not given extra dairy products every day.

The best advice for women who want to avoid osteoporosis is to eat plenty
of calcium-rich foods (and that includes low-fat dairy), to get lots of
exercise, and to stop (or not start) smoking.
----------

Here's the summary from the end of the article:
----------
The Bottom Line:
 * You don't need *any* animal protein to be healthy.
 * Heart Disease.  Switching even some of your animal protein to
   plant protein could lower your cholesterol, especially if it's high.
 * Cancer.  There is little evidence linking protein to cancer in
   humans.  The only consistent link is with liver cancer in animals.
 * Osteoporosis.  If you're a woman who wants to avoid osteoporosis
   (it's not a problem for most men) eat plenty of calcium-rich foods
   (and that includes low-fat dairy), get lots of exercise, and stop
   (or don't start) smoking.
 * Kidney disease.  The American Diabetes Association recommends that
   diabetics not exceed their daily RDA for protein.  Other people
   need not worry.
----------

Here's the reference list from the article:
The first three references go to the section on heart disease; the last
two go to the section on protein and osteoporosis.
----------
Lancet 2: 709, 1980
Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism 29: 348, 1983
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 38: 245, 1983
Journal of the American Dietetic Association 76: 148, 1980
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 70: 264, 1990.

response 5 of 32:

Dec 9 00:53 UTC 1997

Hi once again Valerie.  Are you in every conference?  I could not find a
conference for vegans, this is close.  Does anyone know the vitamin B-12
content of the different seaweeds?  All I found was the fact that most algae,
like people, need B12.  Land plants do not.  It is involved in DNA synthesis,
or was it protein synthesis.  I am trying to cook vegan and it is either
seaweed or vitamin pills.  Sounds like we are closer relatives of kelp than
of oak trees.  Only non-animal B12 sources are said to be seaweeds and tempeh,
does anyone know the B12 content of tempeh?  The USDA insists that no B12 is
found in any vegetables, but also does not list seaweed or tempeh as vegetable
foods.  The Internet was not helpful, but I am inexperienced there.  By the
way, kelp is supposed to be as high in calcium as dark green land vegetables.
You can buy 4 oz dried at China Merchandise for 79 cents.  They also had laver
but I could not find it last trip.  B12 shortages cause anemia, but first they
cause nerve damage.  Most sources say you need to ingest 2-3 mg, which means
to eat 6 micrograms (not milli, micro), but Laurel's kitchen said that is the
recommended daily allowance, and people with the ability to absorb it properly
only need .1 microgram per day to compensate for losses.  An egg has about
1 microgram.  A cup of fresh milk 1, reconstituted from powder .68.  The two
vegan cookbooks at the library, both new, are always out.

response 7 of 32:

Dec 9 01:34 UTC 1997

Hi keesan!  Welcome to the conferences!  Are you reading from the hippie or
the kitchen conference?  I haven't seen PicoSpan use its auto-dredge feature
in years, but it used it on this item for me just now.  That is, it showed
me responses from as far back as 1993.  Weird.


One vegan source of B12 is nutritional yeast, *if* it was cultured on a medium
that contained B12.  The Red Star nutritional yeast that they sell at the
People's Food Co-op contains B12.  It's pretty decent tasting, a bit salty
and interesting, and not at all like either baking or brewers yeast.  Some
people like it sprinkled over popcorn or other foods, or mixed into white
sauces.

response 9 of 32:

Dec 10 19:59 UTC 1997

Thanks for the soymilk and nutritional yeast suggestions, but I don't see that
eating yeast which was fed B-12, or soymilk to which someone added B-12, are
any different from taking vitamin pills.  The mold which ferments soybeans
to tempeh makes its own B-12, as do marine algae.  Maybe I can ask the
question of someone on the Internet, and share the answer as to how many
ounces of dried kelp meet the minimum daily requirement for B12 (which is .1
microgram, recommended 2-3 being enough to cover all problem cases).

response 11 of 32:

Dec 22 23:05 UTC 1997

re beans and flatulence.  From the Internet, I learned that Beano is
alpha-galactosidase (an enzyme which dissolves the disaccharides which we
can't digest, and which cause flatulence).  Beano is obtained from Aspergillus
molds.  The same enzyme is also found in guar, coffee and avocado.  Avocado
is expensive, but miso and soysauce are fermented by Aspergillus molds.  As
a test, we ate beans-cabbage-onions plain (lots of flatulence), with soysauce
(no help), with fermented tofu (fermented by Rhizopus) no help, soaked with
a piece of kelp briefly after cooking (no help) and finally, after a day's
soaking with kelp (which is supposed to digest the protein) and miso.  Not
a bit of flatulence.  Miso is probably tastier than Beano.  We used the soy
and barley variety, on the theory that it was better able to digesst sugars
and starches than the plain soy variety.  Add to the beans after cooking and
cooling down.  Non-gassy legumes are lentils, split peas, black eyed peas,
lima beans, chickpease (if soaked and drained before boiling).  Miso may also
be helpful for flatulence from fried cabbage and onions, but we did not do
a separate controlled study.  Any volunteers?  We should also test miso
without the kelp and vice versa, but are getting tired of being guinea pigs.

response 13 of 32:

Dec 25 21:22 UTC 1997

That sauce that the beans are in in the can is actually what contains most
of the fart-stuff, I believe.  This is one of the reasons that you are
supposed to soak dry beans and keep changing out the water.
(From what I've been told, anyway...:)

response 15 of 32:

Jan 9 02:14 UTC 1998

Don't recall where the discussion of sprouting ended up (some other
conference, I think), but I wanted to let people know that rye (and presumably
other northern-grown grains) will sprout at 60 degrees, and I did not need
to rig up a styrofoam box with a lightbulb, as suggested.  But I do have to
remember to rinse the seeds every day, as they dry out otherwise, and only
the seeds in the middle of the pile sprouted.  Which seeds need it over 60
to sprout?

response 17 of 32:

May 11 22:53 UTC 1998

Start snacking on baked beans and peanut butter.

response 19 of 32:

May 12 03:13 UTC 1998

I assumed you'd go with the more natural versions....  You could eat
plain organic peanuts instead - the only difference is that you eat 'em
by the handful, not the spoonful.  Baked beans are really easy to make
if you're home most of the day, and you can use dark brown sugar, molassas,
honey, or whatever you like to make them.  The idea is to get eating some
fairly healthy foods that have plenty of calories and are very convenient
to snack on during the day.

response 21 of 32:

May 12 22:02 UTC 1998

Try to keep eating from a personal stash of peanuts that Jim doesn't know
about/dare touch/whatever.  Try to find something calorie-laden that's
convenient for you to snack on but Jim doesn't like (heh).  Maybe you'll
just be stuck being underweight.

response 23 of 32:

May 13 18:39 UTC 1998

I am not all that concerned about my weight, it was just a thought.  I will
try to find some B12 somewhere that does not taste like nutritional yeast,
and try it as an experiment.  SOme day we will get the house built to a point
where I don't mind taking some time to eat during daylight hours.  I don't
really want to be eating calorie-laden food rather than nutritious food.
That reminds me, I should go finish cooking breakfast now.