Bioavailable Proteins - Post a day

Mr Rogerswrote:

One thing you said does baffle me we are genetically exactly the same.

We are not. So to have this stance is a disservice to the complexity of how genes and human bodies work. If it were the case, we would all be copies of each other.
Maybe you threw that out there knowing better, but that's a real doozy at face value.

Thank you, I thought I was done with this thread but I appreciate you and Permabeta trying to have reasoned conversations.

I understand we mostly agree, what I'm saying when I say this, is what I've said before:

Eric Marxwrote:

I’m confused by this “individuality” concept, because find me a human whose bones aren’t calcium, whose brain isn’t cholesterol/omega3/choline/creatine, whose muscles aren’t composed of amino acids, whose body isn’t filled with water.

In this sense, we are genetically, EXACTLY the same. That includes almost all of body process. The function of your liver, the way your lungs absorb oxygen and disperse it into your bloodstream. The way your heart pumps blood. Your body is a machine, with a certain design, that requires certain fuel. There is no way around that. Of course, medical exceptions exist, we don't use medical exceptions to disqualify the existence of the rules. The question is not "How is any one person performing compared to another?", the question is, "What is the maximal athletic potential of a single person compared to themselves?"

I'll repeat myself again, "I found what works for me, I don't need water, I don't need calcium for strong bones, I don't need complete, digestible proteins for my muscles, I don't need creatine for muscular function, I don't need DHA/EPA Omega 3 for my brain, I don't need B12, I don't need digestible heme iron for my blood. I function well on refined sugar." These are nonsense statements because that isn't how your body is designed to function. There's nobody on the planet who would say, "Damn, I started getting DHA/EPA omega 3s in my diet and just experienced this horrific brain fog." Unless, of course, there's some sort of medical exception, because genetically, we are ALL designed to use that in our brains.

Permabeta, you recognize this too, we are talking athletic performance, not longevity, it's confusing and irrelevant to the conversation to bring that up. If we're talking longevity I would recommend everybody quit rock climbing immediately and take up brisk walking. I would still recommend about .5g of complete proteins a day, red meat for heme iron/creatine/zinc/magnesium/b12, fish for DHA/EPA omega 3s. You can be a useless, half-starved human who lives forever on a rice terrace because the cancer in your body has no opportunity to grow, because it's just as starved as the rest of you, but that isn't my definition of thriving. But let's talk sports-performance, rehab, recovery, growth, and not longevity. 

If you eat only watercress you'll die very quickly, if you eat only beef you'll live a very long time. Are you trolling? Because the CDC certainly is. This is why the opinion of authority is hilarious. The headline deficiency for vegans is b12. What they are actually deficient in is b12, all amino acids, creatine, choline, DHA/EPA omega 3s, heme iron, zinc, cholesterol(your nerves are lined with cholesterol, Ref:genetic sameness).

Jeez, Bruno, your diet is the epitome of "surviving."

Eric Marxwrote:

The headline deficiency for vegans is b12. What they are actually deficient in is b12, all amino acids, creatine, choline, DHA/EPA omega 3s, heme iron, zinc, cholesterol(your nerves are lined with cholesterol, Ref:genetic sameness).

It's very hard to take you seriously when you say stuff like this so adamantly. What is your source for vegans being deficient in all amino acids, let alone all these other nutrients? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Sure, humans require primarily the same macro and micro nutrients, but humans are very diverse in how they react to and absorb these nutrients. Humans do not have the exact same gut biomes and this heavily influences how bioavailable foods are for each person.

Your claims that, "humans are all the same, therefore there is one optimal diet" is absurd and is basically diet fad logic. Humans have evolved as omnivores and can survive, thrive, and athletically perform under many different diets.

Israel Rwrote:

It's very hard to take you seriously when you say stuff like this so adamantly. What is your source for vegans being deficient in all amino acids, let alone all these other nutrients? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Sure, humans require primarily the same macro and micro nutrients, but humans are very diverse in how they react to and absorb these nutrients. Humans do not have the exact same gut biomes and this heavily influences how bioavailable foods are for each person.

Your claims that, "humans are all the same, therefore there is one optimal diet" is absurd and is basically diet fad logic. Humans have evolved as omnivores and can survive, thrive, and athletically perform under many different diets.

How could a person ignore so much of what I said and cherry pick a single thing to argue with. And then people like it, it’s hilarious. I’ll try again. 

Since plants are on average 60% bioavailable, all in improper amino acid ratios, including things like tofu(bioavailable but improper ratios), and the human body needs a baseline of .5g just to “survive” in a healthy sense, when you do the math, some of which I already provided in my earliest posts in this thread, it is near impossible to achieve proper ratios of amino acids in the body on a vegan diet without crushing your metabolism with 1000s of extra calories. Reread my posts. Since 99% of vegans don’t eat 5,000 calories of rice, beans, and tofu a day to get a baseline level of protein, they are all amino acid deficit. Except for Bruno who appears to eat 5,000 calories in bread a day. Is that clear enough or is that just fad diet nonsense?

The burden of proof of this claim is not on me, since the fad diet is veganism and the human diet, time tested with millions of years of human evolution, is meat-based and hits those baseline nutritional needs with hardly any thought at all.

Bruno Schullwrote:

I think the red meat paleo diet is a fad, and a dangerous one.  That's not how human evolved, and it's not how our teath, stomach, and gut are configured. 

Is everybody just ignoring the clear evidence of increased cancer risk from eating meat?   

To say nothing of the ethical concerns and environmental effects of meat consumption. 

I agree that obtaining enough protein as a vegetarian or "seldom eats meat" person is a challenge, but it's a challenge I think we should embrace. 

On one hand I totally agree and have thought that most of my life. Then I started having some more serious diet related health problems.

Tin foil (tinfoil?) hat time:

The carnivore diet is an excellent elimination diet, and you can survive off of it quite well. Every person I’ve met on a carnivore diet struggled for years with serious health issues then went to it as a last resort, sometimes to great success. My feeling is there are many people suffering and they don’t know why, and such an extreme diet can be truly life changing for them. 

They may be missing the step of reintroducing foods and recording their reactions overtime after. Not everyone can afford a nutritionist, some may just “feel better” and not even consider that maybe certain foods were the problem not all foods. 

As for the cancer risk, I’ve heard nutritionists say red meat consumption is positively correlated with longevity when other factors are accounted for before. Am I an expert, no. My grandpa eats mostly steak and he’s 92 and still works out 3 hours a day, not that n of one means anything.

We only have one life, and if something makes life livable again it’s worth anything to those individuals. 

“my animal-based wife's breastmilk” 

for some that’s a hilarious statement. Congrats on your blooming child!

I didn't feel like it was cherry picking, since it seemed like a central pillar of your argument.

I'm not sure if you saw or read the review posted by Todd earlier in the thread but I'll repost it. The review states that "Plant protein in their original food matrix (legumes, grains, nuts) are generally less digestible (about 80%) than animal protein (meat, egg, milk; about 93%). Food processing has a limited impact on animal protein but its effect might be higher on plant protein." Do you have a source for your 60% bioavailability of plant proteins? 

What is your source for the "proper ratio of amino acids"? I assume here that "proper" is in relation to athletic performance? I would certainly like to see the study that can causally relate amino acid ratios to athletic performance.

And finally, we live in the modern world, we don't need to eat 5000 calories of rice and beans (tofu is bean based so I will leave it out) in order to hit protein targets of ~1g/kg. I can buy soy protein isolate which is 25g protein/90 calories to supplement whatever nutrient rich, vegetarian/vegan diet I want.

You can eat whatever you want, but the assertion that you must eat meat to athletically perform is absurd and doesn't have any real scientific backing.

Deleted post about my son because of post limit and irrelevant anecdotal evidence: @Max, thank you. Obviously a starving, unhealthy woman, will produce low-nutrient breastmilk(or none at all), whereas a woman with proper nutrition will produce nutrient-dense breastmilk. The nutrient content of breastmilk day by day is highly variable depending on what a woman ate.

I'm assuming you(Israel) didn't read the study and only read the excerpt(you too Todd), because it supports exactly what I'm saying. It consistently mentions plant-bioavailability values as low as 50-70%ish. The larger increase to the reported 80% is accounting for highly-processed oils(i believe it mentions rapeseed oil), and other forms of highly-processed plant foods, with very rare exception. The human body is completely incapable of digesting cellulose(which all plants are made of), so only the amount of cells you break up with your teeth, or the amount you break up with cooking(which denatures and destroys usable protein/nutrition inside of the plant, further reducing net-effectiveness) is what you digest into your bloodstream, aka bioavailability. This is why meat should be minimally cooked and almost devoid of nutrition when overcooked. Try swallowing a raw, whole baby carrot and see what comes out the next day. Tell me how much lutein went into your eyes while the whole carrot is sitting there in the toilet.

I'd source millions of years of human nutrition as my source for important amino acid ratios. That's like asking, "Why are the 9 essential amino acids actually essential, and why are they only complete in animal products. Prove it."

Blended plant proteins(not just soy protein isolate, say mixed with pea/sacha inchi) can be okay, as the processing will break up the cellulose and can get the ratios better.

You eat what you want, but 2 vega one shakes a day and 3,000 calories of rice and beans instead sounds just horrific. And again, this is predicated on ignoring all the nutrition mentioned beyond protein.

Edit: @Todd I troll often with my snippet-y attacks, no harm taken, I can take a joke, no problem. What I don't like is when MP mods allow all attacks from one side they agree with to go unchecked :)

Eric Marxwrote:

The burden of proof of this claim is not on me, since the fad diet is veganism and the human diet, time tested with millions of years of human evolution, is meat-based.

Hey Eric, 

Hope you're doing well, I loved the video analysis in the other thread.  

Obviously, you and I have very different diets.  I'm not responding to talk about that (I think it's a fruitless endavor, so to speak) but I do want to respond to your statement about human evolution

(Before going any further, I should say that discussion of human evolution is not intended to attack your faith.  As I understand it, you believe in a divine creator of some kind, but you accept that the creator put the cosmos in motion, and that human evolution does not contradict your beliefs.  If I've got this wrong, my apologies).

The idea that humans evolved eating anything close to a meat-based diet is simply not true.  

Humans, of course, fall into the larger category of primates.  The first primate-like animals lived about 50-60 mya, as a rough estimate.  This ancestor developed into modern animals such as lemurs, lorises, tarsiers, new and old world monkeys, and great apes, including orangutans, gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees (our closest ancestors), and humans.  The common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans lived about 6 mya, so if we want to distinguish ourselves from other apes we could start there.    

All the various early human or human-like creatures, including Ardipithecus, Kenyanthropus, Australopithecus, Pananthropus, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and Homo neadertalensis, which we can think of as our evolutionary cousins, lived during the last 6 million years.  Homo sapiens appeared perhaps 250-300,000 years ago, and lived contemporaneously with neadertals and others species as well.  The only remaining member of these many lineages is Homo sapiens.  

Now, going back 250,000 years ago to the time when Homo sapiens appeared, or 6 mya to common ancestor of chimpazees and humans, or 55 million years ago to the ancestor of primates, accross all those species and all that time, we can ask, "What kind of food did these creatures eat?"

The answer is that they overwhelmingly ate plants (leaves, fruits, nuts, seeds) supplemented with some meat (worms, grubs, insects), very similar to how the other primates and great apes eat today.  Chimpanzees, for example, will hunt other small animals, but this meat, while highly valued, comprises only a small part of their diet, by most estimates less than two percent.

This is how early humans lived as well.  One common misconception is that the ability to control fire and cook meat lead to a shift in our diet from mostly plant-based to mostly meat-based, and so lead to the development of our large brains.  In fact, we don't know why our brains expanded so rapidly.  I find other explanations, such as the use of language, far more persuasive.  Fire did help us process food and access calories, but the large part of this cooked food remained plant-based.  Our "hunter gatherer" ancestors were mostly "gatherers," like the majority of indigenous people today.  There is much archaeological and biological evidence that supports this conclusion.  

What leads you to believe that humans evolved on a meat-based diet for millions of years?

Eric, first off congrats on a healthy baby. I know you may not be able to reply (I hate those comment restrictions) but: 

Eric Marxwrote:

The human body is completely incapable of digesting cellulose,

Gut health, baby! Even for a mostly meat-based diet, some veggies can be really beneficial. I promise they're not poison. And the fiber ain't for you! And Colon cancer isn't a joke. And they fucking taste good!

so only the amount of cells you break up with your teeth, or the amount you break up with cooking(which denatures and destroys usable protein/nutrition inside of the plant, further reducing net-effectiveness) 

I think this is a common misconception -- or at worst an over-used talking point -- that somehow cooking veggies destroys their nutritional content, including and perhaps most especially the protein content.

The Twighlight Zone feeling of this thread is not so much how people are espousing the love of their own diets, but the disparaging of what's seen as an alternative diet that seems almost to threaten their chosen diet. (There also seems to be a whole lot of junk science being shared.) 

I’ve been eating exclusively plant-based foods for well over a decade (sometimes vegan, now more lacto-ovo). I’ve also climbed 100s of 5.12-5.13 routes in that period. I train in the climbing gym several times per week, do some antagonist lifting, and regularly trail run, MTB, road cycle, and snowboard. Generally, I get out on the rock 2-3 days per week, year round  

I’m really not sure what all the protein fuss is about, as I’ve remained almost completely injury free in my 20 years of climbing and have enough energy to do all the aforementioned activities and maintain a full time job whilst raising 2 kids under 3 years old. 

Jonathan Walker wrote:

Maybe the larger indicator of success isn't what you eat but how hard you try when you're training?  

Thread was premised poorly from the get-go.

I don’t think you can blame the shitshow on OP, they just wanted advice on how to eat more protein in a day. I think you’re right that a lot of dead certainty about “the only good diet” is about differences in training, but that whole subject was just what the chucklefucks hijacked the thread into.

I think most reasonable folks try adjusting their diets for better results. And most get that their “conclusions” are neither universal nor permanent, nor maybe even correct. But that doesn’t mean you don’t keep trying and adjusting to fix perceived problems. Just remember not to believe everything that you think and you’ll be fine.

This thread is exactly what any on line forum would look like.   

ONWARDS. If everything I'm saying helps only one person reconsider what they believe to be a healthy human diet, I will continue. For the record, I'm a low-carb(10-15%) omnivore, not a carnivore, or paleo. 

I didn't learn everything I've come to know by being resistant to learning or entrenched in my ways. I'll remind everybody I spent six years as a plant-based eater(6 months of that vegan). Nobody here is making any rational or reasoned arguments or again, addressing most of what I said. Interesting that the only cited study(by the opposition) in this thread supports exactly what I've been saying since the beginning. Almost as if I studied this stuff passionately and extensively without having to resort to immediate and desperate google searches to support what I'm saying.

Long Ranger: I prefer wood chips for fiber. Jokes aside, why would eating wood chips be any different than eating uncooked plants? They're both cellulose and they're both indigestible. I'm really asking that. I mean this as lovingly and inoffensively as I possibly can because you've been very funny and kind in this thread. Based on your selfie, you look like a plant-based eater. Your skin looks unhealthy and sallow, your muscle looks toned but soft, your face isn't really visible but I'd imagine your eyes and the skin around them don't look too healthy either, even for a middle aged 40 year old. I would pick you as a plant-based eater from a mile away. Tell me your blood work is perfect, but you really should consider changing your diet and looking more into the stuff I've mentioned in this thread. Re: Cooking. Cooking is the process of denaturing proteins, and breaking cell walls. When you boil a bunch of broccoli, I hope you're drinking that green water that's left behind because a lot of the nutrition is left floating around in there. Or if you're steaming them, I hope you're huffing the steam that's carrying the nutrition away. Same with saute.

David Jefferson, Rumney doesn't count. ;) I know a 16 year old kid who flashes moonboard v10 and brings a 5 pound bag of sour patch watermelons to the gym with him. You should consider the sour patch watermelon diet if you want to flash v10. Sarcasm aside, I'm glad you've achieved some success on your diet. Eggs are just about the most nutritious food humans can eat, so that's a major exception. What we're talking about is the fuel the human body is designed to run on, and if you're excluding red meat, and not supplementing, you're missing out on certain essential nutrients that I've mentioned over and over in this thread, DHA/EPA omega 3s, creatine definitely, probably most metals. That may be okay with you, maybe you're not trying to get better athletically, or optimize your training, or maybe you're tempering it against longevity or whatever. Your diet may be healthier than the running bag of sour patch watermelons, but it's still exclusive of certain nutrition. Start supplementing 2-3g of creatine(about what you should be getting from red meat) and report back your mental acuity and training power in a month.

Bruno Schullwrote:

(Before going any further, I should say that discussion of human evolution is not intended to attack your faith.  As I understand it, you believe in a divine creator of some kind, but you accept that the creator put the cosmos in motion, and that human evolution does not contradict your beliefs.  If I've got this wrong, my apologies).

The answer is that they overwhelmingly ate plants (leaves, fruits, nuts, seeds) supplemented with some meat (worms, grubs, insects), very similar to how the other primates and great apes eat today.  Chimpanzees, for example, will hunt other small animals, but this meat, while highly valued, comprises only a small part of their diet, by most estimates less than two percent.

This is how early humans lived as well.  One common misconception is that the ability to control fire and cook meat lead to a shift in our diet from mostly plant-based to mostly meat-based, and so lead to the development of our large brains.  In fact, we don't know why our brains expanded so rapidly.  I find other explanations, such as the use of language, far more persuasive.  Fire did help us process food and access calories, but the large part of this cooked food remained plant-based.  Our "hunter gatherer" ancestors were mostly "gatherers," like the majority of indigenous people today.  There is much archaeological and biological evidence that supports this conclusion.  

What leads you to believe that humans evolved on a meat-based diet for millions of years?

Bruno, glad we've made amends and I'm glad you liked watching my dumbass almost fall to my death many times. Let's really get off topic.

Mostly right, I do know that an unknowable creator or God, began the universe at some point by creating time, space, and matter. The mechanism by which it expands seems to be the big bang. I'm sure you know evolution is a fact and a theory. I'm sold on the fact of evolution, that species evolve intra-species, but not the theory of evolution or extra-species evolution. The idea that at some point bananas and humans shared a common ancestor and genetic changes lead us away from our banana ancestors. I do think it's remarkable that even a single-celled organism is so incredibly complex that it all pushing itself together with functioning organelles in a primordial stew seems incredibly unlikely, maybe just as unlikely as there being a creator, but at least the creator having a plan makes more sense and is infinitely less improbable. 

I've ignored the first half of your post because it's misleading. Our human ancestors are believed to have begun consuming meat between 2.5-3 million years ago, I'm surprised you don't know that. Sounds like the chimps are going through what we went through millions of years ago.

Cooking meat is entirely irrelevant. The reason we cook meat is to kill bacteria, not because we can't just eat raw meat. In fact, the most nutritious form of meat is completely raw. If you killed a healthy animal, ripped open it's leg and began chowing down on it's flank, absolutely nothing would happen to you, if your hands were clean and the animal wasn't diseased. Our ancestors didn't really know about bacteria and realized cooking meat somehow lead to less death. I do think it's funny that you put the cart before the horse, our language skills developed not because we suddenly developed language skills, they developed because we began eating meat, fueling our brains with all the nutrition I've mentioned, cholesterol, omega 3, creatine, heme iron, b12. With increased processing power came increased language skills, and all the other advancements.

You've also mentioned animal-proteins and nutrition(bugs) which further proves my point, human ancestors prior to 2.5-3 mil years ago got animal nutrition in their diet. Meat is a denser version of it. This is why pasture-raised eggs, or grass-fed/finished beef is incredibly important. It's essentially a condensed version of grubs/worms/insects, and why it's a nutrient dense and rich food. Cows and chickens need bugs in their diet. Some eggs actually advertise "vegetarian fed hens" which is a euphemism for "unhealthy, low nutrient eggs".

Eric - You may indeed have a lot of useful info to share, but your rude and combative attitude doesn't help get your message across.

I think curiosity is important in the realm of health and diet, and I rely on personal feedback/anecdote probably more heavily than what the scientific literature says (to my detriment?), because it seems like health and wellbeing is complex and hard to compartmentalize in a scientific way, and is somewhat unique for everyone. I've given most of the fad diets a good shot and while I don't feel a huge difference whether I'm eating more meat or more veg, I do tend to see more sustained and balanced energy levels and less hunger pangs/cravings when I'm able to get more protein and fat via red meat in my diet. At this point I've heard of a pretty good amount of people trying to up their red meat intake and seeing positive results (self reports), and have never heard of anybody feeling worse from eating more meat (as long as it's with a health focus in mind and not just eating a baconater every day). Has anybody here been worse off when you eat more meat?

Jaren W wrote:

The phrase “I know” is an interesting one. Are there words in this language so often misapplied?

“I’ve got you,” is perhaps a runner up, if I’m belaying.

I’ll leave you with one of my two favorite quotations:

“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.” Voltaire 

Still wondering why every thread turns into a dogpile and nobody every directly speaks to what I'm saying I.E. a conversation. 

Hey Brandt, I don't actually have a combative attitude, like I said, I didn't learn what I've learned by being resistant to learning. I sprinkle trolling into my posts because this is MP. Being confident in your beliefs isn't combative, though people perceive it that way, particularly in writing. I never do.

Voltaire seems oddly certain of his position that uncertainty is absurd. You can't use an objective statement of fact to disqualify the idea of objective truth. Voltaire is obviously a consequential and intelligent thinker, but he never seems to have fully fleshed out his thought process. One of my two favorite quotes is "There are two secrets to success, and the first is not revealing everything you know." Thanks Jaren, I do enjoy talking to you.

Eric Marxwrote:

Long Ranger: I prefer wood chips for fiber. Jokes aside, why would eating wood chips be any different than eating uncooked plants? They're both cellulose and they're both indigestible.

Oh! Because they're delicious? (and wood is not -- except made into certain tea I guess) That's a big big driver of what I eat -- am I strange? I grew up raised by Californians that came from agrarian immigrant backgrounds so we always grew a ton of veggies. The local climate and soil was so rife for farming that we'd always have more food than we'd know what to do with. It was a 4H family, so much like you, chickens being harvested was one of those things in the Ranger household.

But as I mentioned gut health: gotta feed the microbiome. That fiber that's not digestable is for those buddies -- you must know that, so I don't know why you're being coy. You can do some research on how fiber is important. And there's data on the reduction of the risk of colon cancer as it relates to fiber intake.

Sorry to turn this on its head, but why don't you eat vegetables? I couldn't imagine veggies being no bueno for even a mostly meat-based diet, esp. if fruits are OK. I do give thanks to my parents for being somewhat adventurous eaters and introducing me to so many amazing dishes. They couldn't parent much, but damn could they cook! 

I have found that a lot of people from my ancient generation didn't grow up liking vegetables, since their parents didn't know how to cook them well (they boiled them!), so they tasted terrible.

 Based on your selfie, you look like a plant-based eater. Your skin looks unhealthy and sallow, your muscle looks toned but soft, your face isn't really visible but I'd imagine your eyes and the skin around them don't look too healthy either, even for a middle aged 40 year old. I would pick you as a plant-based eater from a mile away. 

I actually didn't ask to be critiqued for my health, but you do understand that you're not my doctor and if I understand: not a doctor at all, so I don't know why your opinion matters, esp. as I do not think a worthy screening can be done in a bathroom selfie -- but you know that as well, too. 

Why are you acting in such bad faith? 

My skin is fair because my ancestors are from northern latitudes in Europe, and since I believe in the theory of evolution, I'll chalk it up to that. Unfortunately, I could not pick out my parents and one of them just had to be Irish! But it hasn't been much of an issue where people judge me (can't believe I'm writing this...) by my skin color since grade school.

Tell me your blood work is perfect

Not bad really. LDL is a little high. T is above standard @ 1110.00 ng/dl -- both of which I find surprising, seeing I'm a long distance runner. 

but you really should consider changing your diet 

But you don't know what my diet is, as I have not shared it. I just shared that I don't eat beef 14x/week, and that's because it's not realistically affordable. But it doesn't even sound realistically attractive -- variety of food is a true luxury!

Re: Cooking. Cooking is the process of denaturing proteins, and breaking cell walls. When you boil a bunch of broccoli, I hope you're drinking that green water that's left behind because a lot of the nutrition is left floating around in there. Or if you're steaming them, I hope you're huffing the steam that's carrying the nutrition away. Same with saute.

Hmm -- the only way I've talked about veggies is in salad, which are eaten raw. And I wouldn't be getting my protein from broccoli... 

I don't know why you're using the word, "denatured" as this boogeyman thing. An egg white, when cooked turns from clear to white. That's an example of denaturing protein. As is cooking.

Boiling does not take away nutrition via steam. Steam is water vapor. The process of boiling water is one way you can desalinate water. I would agree some nutrients are lost via water if you're boiling veggies, but oh god why would you boil veggies outside of making a St. Paddy's day meal of corned beef and cabbage?

Are these talking points made above by Saladino? Can you reference some of the pages from where he writes about this in his book? 

I feel like I'm being trolled and if so: good show: I fell for it and I bow down to the master. If I'm not and you're being sincere, I honestly would suggest reconsidering where you're going your basic nutrition information, or just consider the idea that food is this amazing wonderful thing to enjoy. 

Okay -- the oatmeal is ready. Happy Breakfast! 

Long Ranger, I do eat vegetables. How much of what I write do you read?

People say fiber is good for gut bacteria, but I’m genuinely asking how and why? What does passing indigestible waste through your system have to do with your gut bacteria? All they could do is latch onto it as it passes by. I haven’t studied that at all, but on its face it doesn’t seem to pass the rationality check, a foam sponge would be insoluble fiber. What is the mechanism by which it helps your gut bacteria?

You misquoted me, I'm not acting in bad faith. I mean it when I say I commented on your appearance as kindly and lovingly as I possibly can, while being truthful, and if you're using your appearance as some sort of marker of health(you posted that selfie), I'm saying you don't look as healthy as you think. You have the sallow, somewhat unhealthy look of a plant-based eater. Maybe it's the lighting, but that plant-based zombie look isn't a meme for no reason. My wife is pale as a ghost. If you're eating raw veggies, with all the nutrition trapped inside of cellulose walls except what you're mechanically breaking up with your teeth, you're all the more unhealthy. Cooked vegetables are more digestible than uncooked, but because cooking destroys nutrition, it's kind of a lose-lose. 

Yes, cooking meats and eggs denatures protein and destroys nutrition, which is why they should be minimally cooked, just enough to kill the bad bacteria. 

Idk who Paul Saladino MD is but he's apparently a doctor so you should listen to him instead of me lol.

Post a day: I'm going climbing.

And if I'm lucky, I'll spear something for lunch down there with my nut tool. Maybe it can be fish-in-taco night with some fish in taconite.

Long live Aleks Zebastian, the king of bioavailability.

Brandt Allenwrote:

Eric - You may indeed have a lot of useful info to share, but your rude and combative attitude doesn't help get your message across.

Rude and combative? Where? 

Toughen up dude.