/me senses animosity ^.^
I am not technically a vegetarian in that I am okay with meat and such. I just agree to eat human someday if very well prepared (VERY well done, almost burned. I would be quite paranoid of parasite passage, which is hypothetically one of the main reasons so many creatures rarely engage in canabalism. And I would need to make sure that the victim is healthy, lacking any prion diseases...). But I don't actually eat meat... The reason: too expensive, and, to me, tastes bad. I have only ever liked ground meats because I hate the general texture most meats have. I also tend to dislike beef, hate pork, and only like the white part of chicken, which is expensive. So as of right now, the only meat I have had in the last 8 months is pepperoni on pizza... I like fish, but I haven't been fishing in years (It's a workaholic thing), and buying it at the store is far too expensive for me (even tilapia... which are delicious ^.^). So reasons for not eating meat: economic, and preference. I also know that animal products require more energy to produce, because the animals themselves use much of the energy fed to them during their lifetime for the many physiological functions animals have (Chicken has a pretty good food-to-meat conversion, though, on par with fungi). They call it 'eating low on the food chain' to eat less herbivores or, worse, carnivores, and more primary producers like plants, as a source of energy. So reason for not eating meat: Ecologic. But as the person with chron's mentioned, protein-based things are particularly easy to digest, and as said above, humans to have trouble with cell walls, which animals like cows subvert with a host of rumen symbionts, thus getting more energy out of what they eat... I recommend looking into Tempeh, which is soybeans partially digested by rhizopus. You get added protein because of processing by the fungus, and it makes more stuff 'bioavailable' to humans. Predigested for your convenience! Not to the person with chron's though. I just recommend this to everyone else ^.^ I don't know enough about chron's to give any advice, sorry ^.^
Yet I maintain myself in quite a healthy state, it seems. I am known for being agile and, though excessively skinny (a perpetual thing: I lived with a hungarian grandmother and never broke 120lbs. Living with a hungarian G-ma is 3 large meals daily plus snacks ^.^), quite capable physically and never ill. I use whole milk and small amounts of cheese for calcium, fats, and other such things. I end up needing to explain when people complain about fat and cholesterol that I am not going to get that fat anywhere else in my diet anyway, so it is still, quite frankly, in moderation. I buy huge bulk bags of frozen peas and other similars, because they are cheap, and add them to everything, and peas I have always found easy to digest so I am relatively sure I get a good amount of the nutrients out. And I supplement with the occasional fungal snack ^.^ All of this goes into the unhealthy component of cheap mac and cheese, which provides starch and the essential yellow teeth ^.^ Otherwise, I just eat cereal (with said whole milk), because Malt-o-meal comes in bags and costs much less mass-per-price then other brands... And I happen to love those flakes full of mineral nutrients. I do, however, supplement with vitamin tablets, fish oil thingies, and calcium tablets, but admittedly I get those from my family as xmas presents so I don't have to worry about the price. And I eat bananas, apples, and such like they were candy. Bananas are relatively cheap, and the apples I get extra cheap because I buy apple scab apples from some of the local growers: apple scab is completely superficial on the apple, infecting only the outer cortical layer of the apple, and has no known toxins whatsoever, but people consider it to be unsightly, so... more for me, and at a better price ^.^ And the final thing, the gist of all this, is that I eat mushrooms, knowing it to be a cholesterol-less (they use Ergosterol in their membranes) protein source with fiber. I can't stand button mushrooms though, so I grow my own ^.^ Flamulina being one of my favorites.
And I eat in moderation: 1-2 meals per day, interspersed with small snacks to avoid hunger, such as a handful of pretzels, a handful of cereal, and the aforementioned fruits.
Granted, there's flaws. In fact, if any of you see glaring errors in the diet, please tell me, because while I try to eat both cheaply and healthily at the same time, I have no actual experience and far too little knowledge in human nutrition ^.^ But as I said, I remain quite healthy: I almost never get sick, or if I do, I kick week-long flues in 2-3 days and with less severe symptoms then those that gave it to me and those that get it from me ^.^ (Hypothetically also attributable to the fact that I am dirty, so get exposed to a lot of stuff, thus imparting an amount of immunity to various things), and I am the only person on my dad's side of the family to have my blood pressure under control (I used to have high blood pressure, like the rest of them, when I lived with them, but under my current living conditions I am only slightly above normal BP).
My current foray into the realm of health is to prepare for myself Rhodotorula yeast for, but I need to get my PCR to work so I can make absolutely sure I have R. gracilis, the yeast known to be without toxins and non-infectuous (one is more likely to get an S. cereviscea infection). Rhodotorula produces very large amounts of carotenoids, which I feel may be lacking in my diet. Good for antioxidants, and B-carotene, which they produce, is the precursor to the retinols.
[ March 20, 2008: Message edited by: Pickerel ]
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Topic: Real food, or plump helmets (Read 17217 times)