From Carnegie Mellon and the “BLT’s must be carbon neutral then” department comes this story sure to strike fear into the hearts of vegetarian climate activists everywhere.
Vegetarian and ‘healthy’ diets are more harmful to the environment
Carnegie Mellon study finds eating lettuce is more than three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon
Contrary to recent headlines — and a talk by actor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference — eating a vegetarian diet could contribute to climate change.
In fact, according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University, following the USDA recommendations to consume more fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood is more harmful to the environment because those foods have relatively high resource uses and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per calorie. Published in Environment Systems and Decisions, the study measured the changes in energy use, blue water footprint and GHG emissions associated with U.S. food consumption patterns.
“Eating lettuce is over three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon,” said Paul Fischbeck, professor of social and decisions sciences and engineering and public policy. “Lots of common vegetables require more resources per calorie than you would think. Eggplant, celery and cucumbers look particularly bad when compared to pork or chicken.”
Fischbeck, Michelle Tom, a Ph.D. student in civil and environmental engineering, and Chris Hendrickson, the Hamerschlag University Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, studied the food supply chain to determine how the obesity epidemic in the U.S. is affecting the environment. Specifically, they examined how growing, processing and transporting food, food sales and service, and household storage and use take a toll on resources in the form of energy use, water use and GHG emissions.
On one hand, the results showed that getting our weight under control and eating fewer calories, has a positive effect on the environment and reduces energy use, water use and GHG emissions from the food supply chain by approximately 9 percent.
However, eating the recommended “healthier” foods — a mix of fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood — increased the environmental impact in all three categories: Energy use went up by 38 percent, water use by 10 percent and GHG emissions by 6 percent.
“There’s a complex relationship between diet and the environment,” Tom said. “What is good for us health-wise isn’t always what’s best for the environment. That’s important for public officials to know and for them to be cognizant of these tradeoffs as they develop or continue to develop dietary guidelines in the future.”
CMU’s Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research and the Colcom Foundation funded this research.
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Aaaaaaand it’s gone….another talking point of most greenies gone! Wonderfull.
I wonder what our Dutch Party for the Animals (I kid you not) is gonna think of this, as they are oh so closely affiliated to our most ambitious Left greenie political spectrum.
“We have to eat MEAT everybody, to fight climate change!”
Old wisdom is best.
All things in moderation.
“All things in moderation”
Including moderation.
I don’t usually respond to the “laugh at the veggie eaters” posts since the studies are too crappy, (and usually sponsored by meat/dairy interests anyway.) But I’m making an exception here in order to present the truth in a very short form. I’m not expecting many if any readers to accept what I’m about to say since people always like news supporting their bad habits. I think it’s important morally to let people know the truth, though, even if they ignore it.
The fact is that the current obesity epidemic is caused by too much fat in the diet. There are diets which lower % of fat from say 40% of calories to 30% (these are the ones usually used as “low fat” when compared with “eating as usual”) but the ideal is about 10%. Also the base of a good diet should be starches. Protein should be reduced to 10-15%. That’s more than enough for growth and maintenance. Sure, take B12 if you go totally Vegan, but it’s the only vitamin necessary if you eat a reasonably large amount of veggies and fruit to supplement the starchy foods. I recommend Dr. John McDougall’s diet which I’ve been following for several years. I started implementing it when I weighed 280 and am now at 178 (actually I’ve been around 180 for a couple of years now.) Follow that plan, which BTW is free and requires no costly supplements or meetings, and you will not be hungry (after you’ve followed it a few weeks).
Now back to the normal glorification of fat and protein.
Dave Dardinger (M.S. Biochemistry, Purdue)
” The fact is that the current obesity epidemic is caused by too much fat in the diet. ”
No, it is lack of exercise !!
Yes, sorry the ‘too much fat in the diet’ theory has long been debunked. Fats are good for you, too much sugar is bad and can lead to obesity and inflammatory conditions. Too many carbs particularly processed carbs are the enemy.
Not really true. Sure you can lose weight if lots of exercise, but it takes a lot of exercise for just a minimal loss of weight and generally people eat more when they exercise more. And don’t get confused by the initial loss when you exercise which is mostly water.
Get a tapeworm.
The too much fat theory has been debunked so please do keep up. Too much sugar is bad for you is now the perceived wisdom of the health obsession is ts.
Sorry Janice, but the supposed debunking of fat is a prime example the sort of bad studies I mentioned. Could you post a link to a study you think debunks fat as bad?
BTW, I’m somewhat surprised that skeptics here don’t seem to have applied their skepticism to this supposed debunking. I’m a strong skeptic of CAGW myself, but my skepticism includes other things than just climate.
Also, too much of many things are bad for you, but sugar isn’t particularly a problem… except that the liver can produce fat from sugar, and the liver preferentially absorbs fructose rather than glucose (they’re interconverted within the cells. So if there’s too much fructose entering the blood stream, part of it will be used to produce triglycerides I.e. fats. starches, OTOH, breakdown in the digestive system into pure glucose which is burned in muscles and the brain, etc. It’s almost never converted to fat. Of course, sugar is a problem if your pancreas is compromised or you have insulin resistance. Insulin resistance, BTW is caused by fat clogging up the insulin receptors of cells. Lose weight and lower fat intake and the resistance will almost always go away, which will get you back to normal assuming your pancreas is still producing insulin.
IF diet is an issue it’s an overabundance of calories, specifically carbs/sugar which trigger an insulin response that tells your body to store the calories as fat.
Pick any diet other than Vegan and you can find a culture that thrives on it.
The ONLY thing that shows health improvements regardless of risk factors is exercise.
There is NO dietary study that can prove otherwise because of all the confounding variables. Vegans/Vegetarians don’t live any longer than anyone else. It’s a tool for people to feel superior to others because they can put up with the misery of a diet like that.
The following exchange says it all:
“Wakey, Wakey, eggs and bakey.”
“But I’m a Vegan”
“Wakey, Wakey, vegetables and sadness”
Eat your bacon, get some exercise, and enjoy your life.
Well, hot air, I used to eat my bacon, chicken, steak. That’s how I got to 280. Now I eat almost totally vegan (but I’m not a “ethical” vegan) and enjoy my life much more. I don’t know where you get the idea V/V don’t live longer, but I’d like a link which gives the details.
Let’s get a grip on reality here. In large part the “obesity epidemic” is caused by the deplorable tampering with the definitions of “overweight” and “obese” perpetrated in 1998.
That said, I’m not a small person, but I am truly amazed by the mass of many of my fellow Americans. It’s impressive that they somehow stay upright and are able to propel themselves.
In any case, the cause of overweight and obesity seems almost certainly to be due to consuming too many (kilo)calories and expending too few — over a substantial time span. There are probably dietary considerations in what mixes of carbohydrates, starches, and proteins are acceptable for each individual, and in many cases one suspects that more exercise wouldn’t be a bad idea. But in most cases, there seems to be quite a lot of latitude in the components of diet that will yield decent results.
When it comes to diet, one size surely does not fit all.
That’s funny. As a diabetic I eat LCHF (low carb high fat), and have for 4 years. I started at 287 lbs. (I am just shy of 6′ 7″) and have been a steady 226-229 for 3.5 years. My bloodwork, done every 6 months, is normal. Triglycerides, cholesterol, A1C all in the normal range.
Low fat is CAUSING obesity. There are 2 ways food gets flavor, base flavor, fat or sugar. That’s it. Remove fat, guess what gets added. For homework, walk around a grocery store and read the ingredients for anything that would naturally have fat that is labeled low or no fat. See how many ingredients you go through before sugar of some sort is listed.
But then, I am just a dumb old truck owner/driver. What do I know.
Actually that’s not entirely true… fat is good for you but in moderation, despite what experts proclaimed. For instance, the “great heart-saver” Ancel Keys got the whole world suckered about his fat-hyptothesis and his studies nowadays turn out to be cherry-picked and skewed. When everybody started to follow his recommendations obesity figures soared. I trust climate people to recognize the scientific pattern…
What I found for myself personally is that when I lessen the carbohydrates (sugars like starch, fructose/sucrose, and so on; specifically potatoes/rice/pasta/bread) in my diet I lose weight more easily and lasting than when I used to reduce fats to almost nothing (I even tended to GAIN weight then !!!). These days I eat mostly-carb-free on 4 days out of 7 and lose about 300 gr a week. And before someone bleats about excercise: due to chronical illness (CFS/ME and Fibromyalgia) I cannot excercise sufficiently so “starving” myself is the only option I have for losing weight. I typically eat 1500 or less kcal a day… and with carbohydrates still got fatter.
My dear Mother has the best answer methinks: “Eat like our grand- and great-grandparents used to: only rarely what you like and always in moderation.”
David, the “Fat Proportion” has been completely falsified. What matters is calories, vitamins, and amino acids. The breakdown really doesn’t matter. Eliminating fats is one of the best ways to eliminate calories, and I’m glad it was successful for you, but it is not the only way in the least.
However, I have to say something as well. The measurement (resources/calorie) is extremely biased against the vegetables listed ast they have such small caloric value, so they will never catch up. What about the staples: grains, beans, and potatoes? They are far lower in resources per calorie, which is why the poor eat very little meat and few fresh vegetables. Yes, a vegetarian can easily consume huge quantities of resources by eating fresh vegetables, but that’s not the bulk of caloric intake.
d46, you’re full of it, read Fat Chance by Dr. Lustig
Dr. Lustig is primarily concerned about large quantities of HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) and or sucrose as both are about 50% fructose. As I indicated in one message earlier, Fructose is absorbed by the liver and can then be converted to fat in the liver (actually cells have an enzyme which converts fructose and glucose and vv, so the enzyme which leads to liponeogenesis may well actually use icellular glucose rather than fructose itself.) Glucose in the bloodstream, however, is not converted into fat (for one thing it’s not sucked into the liver like fructose. Other body cells don’t produce fats from glucose and therefore a diet based on starches can’t cause obesity unless it’s also high in fructose or fat.
The obesity epidemic wasn’t caused by one single thing — there are a number of factors:
1. The quantity of food (and drink) consumed. Too many people graze all day with snacks and sugary drinks. For main meals, portion sizes are frequently too large.
2. The modern diet contains way too much refined sugar.
3. Folks do not get enough exercise.
Sure, we need to control our consumption of fats, especially saturated fats. But beware of low-fat products which frequently come with gobs of added sugar to restore flavor and satisfaction.
The idea that fats were to blame for all of our problems was a myth promulgated by a multi-billion dollar sugar industry that wants us to consume more and more of their refined poison. They were very happy when their propaganda worked and shifted the focus from sugar to fats. And ecstatic when food processors started shoveling ever more sugar into the low-fat products that were flying off the shelves.
If there’s one bad boy in this it’s refined sugar. But, of course, the reality is a bit more complicated.
BTW, if you really have a sweet tooth, eat lots of fresh fruit but not juices. You need the fiber full the full sense of fullness/satisfaction.
Nice opinion. Though that is all it is.
The human body is well constructed to handle meats and fats. The human body is not able to handle large amounts of carbohydrates.
Excerpts from the ‘Lewis and Clark’ expedition note: “Each man consumed nine pounds of meat per day, when available…”. No reports of any Lewis and Clark members gaining weight.
Inuit diet is customarily all meat and eating seal or whale blubber quite common.
Many eastern European peasants considered eating pork fatback a treat. No it was not cooked first.
European meat preservation; e.g. duck confit, made use of fat as an effective seal from molds, bacteria and oxygen. Nowadays it is considered a delicacy.
Native American meat storage was similar, if more healthful. Native Americans dried meat, fruit and berries. They then pounded all three into a fine mixture that was then soaked and covered in hot fat; goose, duck, bear or whatever was available in quantity.
Since the berries and fruits were dried, not cooked, vitamin content was not destroyed and the resulting mixture, pemmican, was very healthy nourishing Native Americans through long winters without ricketts, scurvy or other nutrient or amino acid shortages.
Prior to the cholesterol and fats scam, Americans ate meats and fats in quantity. Lard and butter was commonly used and overweight Americans were unusual and overweight was usually due to lack of exercise. Still is.
Do a search for “French paradox” to read some interesting things about a rich and fat diet and health.
The vegan agenda is basically an ‘elite’ (or central banking oligarchy) plan to deprive us of meat making us weaker, less able to resist their tyrannical one world government machinations and sick and dependent on big Pharma. There is also a psychological component of the diet that feeds into the ‘Gaia, mother Earth’ belief system they encourage via various social engineering methods as a trendy hipster religion and this encourages weakness mentally.
In Feudal times the Nobility dined on a lot of quality meat while the peasantry ate mostly grains, potatoes and plants etc. They desire this again.
Arnold Shwarzenegger is one of the biggest meat eaters around, as are all body builders and has a giant carbon footprint, what a hypocrite! They thought now who can we get to persuade the hundreds of millions of men to stop eating meat, an icon of masculinity and manhood, someone that has significance and sway in the muscle-meat connection, someone who’ll do whatever we say to maintain power and influence… I know!…..
Dude, I’m tapping out. Your post, along with genocidal accusations on another article just proves this is a wacko, Area 51 with a mix of white evangelical stroke cycles site that a former weatherman runs to make ad dollars.
In other words, “I can’t handle the thinking required, so I’ll call you a bunch of names and leave.” Typical libtard.
Later Dude
Thanks for the deep thoughts.
Y’all, while LNeraho is being rude in his point, I think we can agree that conspiracy nonsense like this helps no one.
There is no conspiracy to make people weaker. Come ON. That’s just foolish. They either think it’s for the best for people, best for the Earth, or are just looking to line their pockets through helping their investments. However, this is just lunacity, and it derails and undermines the purpose of this site by giving people a reason to dismiss us.
I find it helpful to assume that all outlandish declarations are sarcasm or satire or some such.
Funded by the Colcom /Scaife Foundation. No bias there. Check your sources before you make conclusions. You may as well be getting diet advice from Rush Limbaugh.
I think you’ll find that very few here are taking this seriously.
Rush Limbaugh has lost a lot of weight and is now looking trim. Actually, he has been for several years. So yeah, getting diet advice from Rush would be a good idea, because he’s successful.
Time to update your talking points.
“Studies” like these are packed to the brim with unstated and unverifiable assumptions. Never mind that the entire concept of ‘greenhouse gases’ is flawed (the greenhouse effect only exists in the absence of convection).
There is simply no reliable data on the “toll on resources in the form of energy use, water use and GHG emissions” from all the processes involved in growing, processing and transporting food, food sales and service, and household storage and use.
The real conclusion is : “There’s a complex relationship between diet and the environment.”
In other words, “More research is needed – please send money.”
Regarding: “Lots of common vegetables require more resources per calorie than you would think. Eggplant, celery and cucumbers look particularly bad when compared to pork or chicken.”:
Celery and cucumbers require more resources per calorie because these have nearly zero calories. I did not see any mention of grains, potatoes or legumes. Pork and chicken require more resources including those needed to feed them per calorie than their food does, since they don’t hit the market with every calorie that they ate throughout their lives.
+1
Agreed, it’s a completely irrelevant and biased comparison. Maybe if they did a balance over an entire diet it would be useful, but then the uncertainties will completely wipe out the data.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwX8Ip_RAq0 Please Watch
I can’t quite believe how someone in this field can miss the energy chain part of the pig. The pig doesn’t live off nothing and requires more energy through it’s life than lettuce does. Never heard of the higher the food chain, the more energy it requires? What happens if the pig has lettuce in it’s diet because they eat everything? This statement about eating lettuce is simply not true.
It’s a numbers game: it’s on a per-calorie basis. The lettuce has practically zero calories, so the transport and water usage is divided by almost nothing. I would think that this site would have picked up on that before publicizing it.
To produce “…1 kg … beef … require … 13 kg … grain (plus) … 30 kg .. hay … .” For water use involved figure that “… 100,000 L of water … (needed to ) produce …100 kg of hay …” & that would use “… 5,400 L (of water) for (producing)… 4 kg of grain….” Alternatively, in case beef is “… on rangeland for forage production, more than 200,000 L of water are needed to produce 1 kg of beef … ” In terms of poultry ” … 1 kg of broiler (chicken)… produced (needs) … 2.3 kg of grain requiring approximately 3,500 L of water (to produce)….” (data as per 2003 “Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment”; Free full text = http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.long).
Free text and not worth the money.
All alleged requirements are estimated and serve as perfect examples of confirmation bias.
Journal of Animal Science,Vol. 74 No. 6, p. 1395-1405 study called “Ecosystems, sustainability, and animal agriculture” by a team out of Fort Keogh Livestock and Range Research Laboratory (Montana) looked at a North American cow-calfing operation & stated pasture raised beef needed 280 kilo-calories of energy from “tame pasture” to generate 1 kilo of “output” (meat on the hoof so to speak); while if feed on corn silage needed 617 kiilo-calories from it (as per Table 4).
This 1994 study is available as a free full pdf if click on (left side) “view” ink to full pdf. It gives some very thorough data throughout the report & in Table 3 goes into “Inputs” of labor, machinery, pickup, transportation, fertilizer, pesticide, seed, irrigation, fence & water. The authors make a distinction where-by rangeland cattle rearing is efficient but once get into feed-lot things become more nuanced.
How about everybody stop telling everybody else what to eat !!!
there you go…let the market sort it out. I’m through with Vegans Vaggins, Pagans, or what ever just shut up and eat your supper!
How does this research impact on bio fuels (bio ethanol, bio diesel etc)?
Surely bio fuels are very resource intensive, using fertilisers and irrigation, and of course, fossil fuels to plant, harvest and convert etc.
Are bio fuels really more carbon neutral?
Anyone got any views and knowledge on the subject.
Yep, the resources required for biofuels are indeed an issue. Corn ethanol is especially awful because there is also a distillation step used to extract a usable fuel from the corn beer created by fermentation of corn. There is a spectrum here from use of used frying oil as a fuel at one end to corn ethanol produced on marginal land with poor yields at the other Burning (filtered) used frying oil in a diesel engine seems like a perfectly OK idea. But how many gallons of cooking oil can even America produce? Corn ethanol? Pretty much a complex ag-subsidy. Not gonna save the planet with that stuff.
(BTW, the poor net return of green energy from corn ethanol was predicted in advance. The predictions were ignored by the G W Bush administration).
It’s like watching a pendulum – all very predictable.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/14/agu15-its-not-the-killer-heat-but-the-killer-humidity/#comment-2097322
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11561354
Some will force their view on anything.
It no longer matters because the Paris Climate Agreement has stopped climate change for now and for all time.
Does it matter what the pigs are eating?
It matters what the pigs are eating because all resource uses in the food chain use greenhouse gas emissions and are also added to the pigs emissions per calorie. (not taken into account here when it must) Therefore huge amounts of calories are lost through the pigs lives as product waste. Simply the higher up the food chain the more calorie waste in the species, that is not there in the end product.
Many pigs, indeed most pigs raised commercially, are fed food waste from nearby urban areas.
Pigs make for a very efficient food resource.
“Studies” are done when proof (or simply convincing evidence) is lacking.
Here’s what the alarmist crowd thinks about skeptics asking them for proof of man-made global warming:
Excellent dbstealey!
Some Indian holy men claim they do not need any nourishment but sunshine. That’s the ultimate solution: eat neither lettuce nor bacon.
A Hungarian metallurgical engineer, after visiting India, took it rather seriously and he also convinced his wife. When finally grandma tried to enter their apartment, unsuccessfully, and the only sound she heard was whining of a 2 years old baby daughter, she called the authorities. The wife perished, after a miscarriage with her second child, born dead, but the husband was at such a high spiritual stage by that time, that he failed to notice it. Their daughter survived, barely, she had 72 hours left according to doctors, at most, with weight of a 6 months old.
That’s how carbon neutral they went.
They only went carbon neutral if they didn’t decompose.
Cemeteries should be equipped to capture decomposition gases.
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
“Eating lettuce is over three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon,…” Heads just exploded at Climate Cult meetings all across California. Pass the bacon.
Why is it always that this kind of story is presented with a sense of glee? Is it really such a bad thing to be vegetarian or vegan in order to reduce suffering in the world? No-one in a Western society particularly needs to eat meat, and a vegan or vegetarian diet can be quite varied and just as tasty. The problem is that modern farming industrialises food production and generates enormous suffering by sentient creatures for fat Westerners to leave half eaten bacon burgers at the local Maccas, or endless celeb chefs to extol the virtues of this or that meat-based dish.
The bottom line is that large numbers of humans will always impact the natural world, so we can’t create a perfect world. Of course. But we can stop the abhorrent practices of mass production farming and the horrible treatment of animals that brings with it. Sure, maybe some animals are killed in ploughing land, or driving cars, or mowing the back lawn. That’s how it is, but we can work to reduce even that impact. However we can make a HUGE difference by not choosing to eat meat and supporting the torture and killing of literally billions of fellow animals every year.
In my view, the whole environmental impact/CO2 thing is a bit of a red herring. It may or may not be an issue. The real issue is simply compassion. Why exactly do people think this is so bad, and why do they think the argument against compassion is because they like a taste? Seems a pretty trivial reason to me.
Beheading &. enslaving human beings is an even more abhorrent practice, than slaughtering animals, by a wide margin.
Bottom line is, we have a somewhat more immediate problem at hand, so please try not to preach your vegetarian creed for the time being.
The glee stems from the fact that the holier-than-now AGW brigade told us to eat veggies because meat production created more CO2 which would cook the planet. As usual, it turns out they were wrong!
Excuse our smug satisfaction but these self-righteous hypocrites have been wrong so often we really to have to laugh at them.
“…large numbers of humans will always impact the natural world, so we can’t create a perfect world” seems to imply that human beings exist outside or as a separate thing from the natural world. This is certainly not the case; there is no real dichotomy between humanity and nature.
Not completely sure what you mean by perfect, either, since the world is constantly evolving. Change is the only constant in the universe, as the old adage goes.
They may take our wages, but they will never take our BACON!!
Mike Smith, agree that IS an amusing twist. Berényi Péter… what on earth are you talking about? Beheading people? What does that have to do with this post?
I admit it, I used to be somewhat of a skeptic. But when I found out that by eating more bacon I could save the planet, all I can say is count me in!
David46 – “The fact is that the current obesity epidemic is caused by too much fat in the diet.”
====================
Any evidence for that?
* * * * * * * * *
“Recent studies by the anthropologist Neville White and the biochemist Kerin O’Dea have shown that populations pursuing a traditional way of life in the North Arnhemland region of Australia are extraordinarily healthy and surprisingly free from stress and diet-related diseases, despite being much leaner than the official WHO guidelines recommend. What makes this especially surprising is that the Aboriginals make a culinary specialty out of fats: their favored animal parts are just those that are known to be highest in cholesterol, namely the liver, the main fat depots and the brain. The Aboriginals show a fine-tuned appreciation of the habits of the animal species they hunt: they know exactly when during the year a species’ natural fat-cycle is at its peak, and only then do they pursue that species.”
–Robin Dunbar, The Trouble with Science, (1995) p. 48.
* * * * * * * * * *
Something else to think about…
“Bottom line: when we eat fat, we are eating something that is an awful lot like diesel fuel.”
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/09/01/how-omega-3-fatty-acids-work/
This saved my life! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRe9z32NZHY
Of course there’s evidence. Groups such as Okinawa natives have the highest % of centenarians despite only eating a few % of animal products. Seventh Day Adventists in California (who are mostly vegans) live 10+ years longer than other Californians.
As for this Aboriginal group, what is their average life expectancy? And what % of their diet is animal products? Oh, and what is their actual caloric intake?
You switched from obesity to longevity.
re: longevity:
“It is true Japan holds the [longevity] record at the moment, but if you go back a little it was Sweden or New Zealand.”
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/19/japanese-diet-live-to-100
re: obesity:
http://authoritynutrition.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/low-fat-guidelines.jpg
(Source: National Center for Health Statistics (US). Health, United States, 2008: With Special Feature on the Health of Young Adults. Hyattsville (MD): National Center for Health Statistics (US); 2009 Mar. Chartbook.)
from 6 Graphs That Show Why The “War” on Fat Was a Huge Mistake, includes links to the studies and data.
This was the 1949 Okinawan diet of 2,279 people according to the following data in the U.S. National Archives. As per “Caloric Restriction, the Traditional Okinawan Diet, and Healthy Aging, The Diet of the World’s Longest-Lived People and Its Potential Impact on Morbidity and Life Span” published in (2007) Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1114. … (quote) TABLE 1. Traditional dietary intake of Okinawans and other Japanese circa 1950″ =
Total calories 1785;
Total weight (grams) 1262;
Caloric density (calories/gram) 1.4;
Total protein in grams (% total calories) 39;
Total carbohydrate in grams (% total calories) 382;
Total fat in grams (% total calories) 12;
… (subcategory)
Food group Weight in grams (% total calories) =
Grains: Rice 154, Wheat, barley, and other grains 38;
Nuts, seeds Less than 1;
Sugars 3;
Oils 3;
Legumes ( soy and other beans) 71 ;
Fish 15;
Meat (including poultry) 3;
Eggs 1;
Dairy less than 1;
Vegetables: Sweet potatoes 849, Other potatoes 2;
Other vegetables 114;
Fruit less than 1;
Seaweed 1;
Pickled vegetables 0;
Flavors & alcohol 7 …
One of my all time favourite Homer Simpson quotes;
““(Lisa) “I’m going to become a vegetarian” (Homer) “Does that mean you’re not going to eat any pork?” “Yes” “Bacon?” “Yes Dad” Ham?” “Dad all those meats come from the same animal” “Right Lisa, some wonderful, magical animal!”””