A few more stats

In 2013, Americans (about 300 million) ate an average of 104.4 pounds of meat per person. Of that, 56.3 pounds were beef, and 46.8 pounds were pork. Each American also consumed 83.2 pounds of chicken, turkey in 2013 was 16 pounds. The average total amount of poultry eaten was 99.2 pounds.

Therefore, the average total for all red meat and poultry was 203.6 pounds.

The amount of fish and shellfish eaten by the average American in 2012 was 14.4 pounds.

the meat industry states;
Total meat and poultry production in 2012 reached more than 92.9 billion pounds, up 600 million pounds from 2011.

In 2012, the meat and poultry industry processed:
8.6 billion chickens
32.1 million cattle
250 million turkeys
2.2 million sheep and lambs
113.2 million hogs

Maybe 7,000 is a low estimate?


.

When I joined this forum I was told there would be no math.

"News Flash"...everyone gets defensive when attacked. "Fanatics" is accurate when looking at the ridicules and laughable 7,000 animals eaten by each person presented as fact. Take a look around this site, when was the last time a meat eater started a post exalting the virtues of eating meat? We don't have defend our choice. Your agenda is obvious and your methods an facts are severely flawed.

Jimbo. You are a great person. You are an amazing DIY-er. You are a great business owner. You are charming and sweet.

But take a deep breath.

About the above?

WE DON'T CARE.

Then why all the interest or activity on this topic?




Ps: tks for the accolades

I'm upset about one thing...

Where is all the concern about all the poor, innocent plant lives that are lost each year to vegetarians, vegans, and yes...even us meat-eaters??!!?? Have you ever seen a raper...err...reaper harvest a crop?!? Oh the veganity!! chilout

According to an Oxford University study, vegans are 30% more likely to break a bone than meat eaters.

Nay.............or is it Neigh

Chicken little, nice to quote out of context;

it went on to say "Vegans who got enough calcium were no more likely to break a bone"

And how about those forced to suffer the life of a slave to prepare vegan meals at restaurants waiting for the one order a week while hoping for one a day?

7,000 animals?
 

Neither. It's whinny. (pronounced winey)

So is it the average meat eating person as in the OP or is it the average meat eating American who consumes too many animals? Is a chart from a vegan website proving we have more vegetarian body characteristics than carnivore characteristics to be trusted as accurate as proof we are meant to be herbivores or does it mean that it is harder to chew and digest plant material for nutrition than to get the nutrition from meats.

Are you aware that the long term data on Seventh Day Adventists show that avoiding beef reduces the risk of fatal heart disease in men but actually increases it in women?
Associations between diet and cancer, ischemic heart disease, and all-cause mortality in non-Hispanic white California Seventh-day Adventists
I have attached the pertinent graph below. This is the long term study of the white California group and the conclusion is important

"It is important to note that vegetarians may have lower disease risk because of their lack of meat consumption, but it is equally possible that this protection could be due to increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, or nuts. Upon multivariate analysis, the latter often appeared to be the case."

In fact the single most important nutritional difference found was a great benefit from eating nuts.

Previous posts on this thread that heart disease stopped in WW2 are wildly overstated. There was a mortality difference of 2 out of a 1000. And the claim of 10 year life expectancy difference for vegetarians is similarly wildly wrong.

http://www.internationaljournalofcar...290-X/abstract from 2014 "Conclusions

Data from observational studies indicates that there is modest cardiovascular benefit, but no clear reduction in overall mortality associated with a vegetarian diet. This evidence of benefit is driven mainly by studies in SDA, whereas the effect of vegetarian diet in other cohorts remains unproven."

There are many many more well done studies in good journals. The evidence at this point is that a lower meat, higher nuts so called Mediterranean diet may be the best for most people. But your individual mileage will vary.

Blue- thanks for the interesting data and your very balanced neutral analysis. You probably didn't mean it this way but your last sentence distills life and your post very succinctly.

That was in 1999 I think hardly current thinking or research



care to cite where you found that info?



Misleading Mediterranean Diets: Another Look at the Evidence

The recently published New England Journal of Medicine article on the benefits of a Mediterranean diet, “Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet,” has been roundly praised. It might have been better titled, “Promoting Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet.”

All three dietary groups had almost equal facility promoting the growth and clinical appearance of cardiovascular disease which manifested itself as strokes, heart attack and death in those who at study onset did not have this illness.

This Spanish study which clearly worsens cardiovascular disease, is not alone as earlier this month the British Medical Journal updated the randomized Sydney Heart Study, confirming that the addition of oils worsened the outlook for cardiovascular disease.

By way of contrast, our small plant based nutrition study took patients with established advanced cardiovascular disease and not only halted disease progression but was able to demonstrate disease reversal. We will shortly publish an expanded version confirming our original findings.

The epidemiologic ultimate confirmation of the power of plant based nutrition to prevent cardiovascular disease is best demonstrated in T. Colin Campbell’s China Study. In a rural province in China over a three year period examination of over 250,000 death certificates, not one death was attributable to cardiovascular disease.

We’ve reached a crucial fork in the road: do we promote cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean diet or eliminate it with plant based nutrition?

Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
Director Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Reversal Program Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute.
February 26, 2013

- - - - -

The debate over which diet is best has been severely fraught with a serious misassumption, namely, what is a low fat diet. Virtually everyone, professionals and non-professionals alike, refer to a diet containing 25-30% fat as 'low fat' and anything lower as "extremely" low fat, thus dismissing it, in effect. The implications of this wrong-headed thinking are huge, misleading consumers, policy makers and medical practitioners worldwide, while driving up disease care costs. Being an experimental researcher and policy maker myself for more than a half-century, I have seen this first hand.

The dietary lifestyle having the greatest ability to maintain and restore health, while preventing and actually reversing disease, is one comprised of whole, plant-based foods, with no added oil and refined carbohydrates. It is one fashioned over millions of years by nature and its nutritional composition just so happens to be about 10-12% fat, 10-12% protein and 75-80% carbohydrates, while being chocked full of life-promoting antioxidants and the right kinds and ratios of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Drs. Esselstyn and Ornish have it right. They have shown that cardiovascular diseases can be reversed with this diet. We also have shown that protein, when animal-based and when fed in excess of our needs say of 8-10%, turns on cancer and elevates the processes that lead to cancer and other serious diseases. Nothing in medical practice comes close to matching these benefits.

T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study

- - - - - -

Also see article by John McDougall on this study, linked here.

this is good read

Though current medical and surgical treatments manage
coronary artery disease, they do little to prevent or stop
it. Nutritional intervention, as shown in our study and
others, has halted and even reversed CAD

full article


.

Can vegetarians eat gummy bears and gummy worms??

:loco::loco:

Goldfish Crackers??

My family said it was healthy to have a colorful plate where most of the stuff was fruits and veggies and a little bit of the stuff was protein, with a little fat for flavor and starch to make it go further and stick to your ribs. (none of us need that much now).... but I am not evangelistic about it. It tastes nice and it is good for us. My Aunt Elise said so.

AND it so happens that back then, when I was very young, it was also economical and many had kitchen gardens. We canned food and always had fresh veggies and fruits. Sugar was rationed when I was five.

Great advice.

So the latest information is 2.5% vegan? whereas I had said 2% based on a Gallup poll. Not a big difference. Either way it supports the point I was making that vegans are only a small minority.

Thanks for the information; I'll go with the 2.5%

There you go again with the name calling.

I don't have the exact dates but books were recommended like "Brain Drain" and "Wheat Belly".


Then what are you defending?


What's the agenda? Which facts do you think are severely flawed?

Good questions, rubicon, here's the answer:

Those who eat animal protein and junk food don't have to promote it because they have the food industry to do it for them.

What if the tables were turned and you were in the 2.5% minority? Imagine this: You read the newspaper on Thursday and all the restaurant ads are for vegan restaurants. You go to get your mail on Thursday and your postal box is full of glossy restaurant ads picturing nothing but vegan meals. You go to a restaurant and they only have one or two items for meat eaters - one is a ham sandwich and the other is a hotdog, if you're lucky.

Then you drive down the street and you see Vegan King, McVegan's (under the golden arches), Dunkin Vegans, Wendy-Vegan, Vinny's Vegan pizzas.
Imagine your world dominated by everything vegan.

Dogs eat whatever they are given. You buy the dog food, put it in their dish, and they'll eat it. How would you like to be treated that way in a restaurant if the tables were turned. You would have to be happy with the ham sandwich if that's all they decide to have available.

And if you should decide to promote meat, how would you like it if I said, "Live and let live."

I of course can't speak for rubicon, but if you posed the question to me...

I'd know I was a small minority therefore accept the consequences of my choice. I'd know that the arguments whether pro or con are not definitive regardless of how fervent either side is. And I'd be fine with "live and let live" as a result, not trying to force my views on others.

Surely vegans have chosen to be in the 2.5% minority?

If people cannot eat meat for medical reasons then I have sympathy for them, but if they CHOOSE not to eat meat then they really should be happy to live with their decision.

It just seems rather perverse to choose a lifestyle and then moan just because not everyone decides to go the same way?

Then why don't you simply go after the restaurants rather than attacking people for what they eat because it doesn't suit 2.5% of the population. And barefoot's statement was not a frivolous accusation. You have stated eating fish before.

God put animals on this earth for man to EAT! Thats there purpose!

[...

Your post seems to be good reasoning except for the part where you say "....the arguments whether pro or con are not definitive...."

The arguments are not definitive to those who simply dismiss the results of the long-term large-scale studies.

What's the agenda? You should be honest and say what your agenda is. Or am I supposed to believe that you are truly concerned and worry about the health of the billions of people who eat meat and have taken up the cause to save them? Please....Spare me
Flawed facts....yes. Tell me then, of the 7,000 amimals, what would the "animals eaten" ratio be? What's the actual body count by animal? Are squirles included?

Yes, it is a choice.

Well, this part may be difficult to explain to the satisfaction of others. I did choose veganism for "medical" reasons, in a manor of speaking. That is to say my goal is to prevent future medical issues, like cancer.

There's no "moaning" and I never said that everyone should go the same way. I'm generally pleased and happy with my choice. I enjoy good health and that's what makes me happy.

Sorry, VPL, but both "sides" can make the same claim.

7,000 animals?
 

I have a feeling there a few carnivores out there that can say the same thing.

Going after the restaurants? If I did that, it would be said that they only serve what the average person wants. Therefore, the only game in town is to encourage people to choose healthier foods and reject junk food. In other words, I believe you have to change what people want. And it is working to a certain extent.

About the fish: I answered that question. BTW, I misspoke: I make 12 servings out of one 15 ounce can and it comes to about 1.2 ounces of fish per serving. But it's not the smartest decision I ever made and I plan to stop. The frivolous accusation I was referring to was about Arby's. I didn't say I was going to eat any animal protein at Arby's. I said I was interested in giving it (Arby's) a try but then I later changed my mind. It was made to sound like it was a done deal. Always looking for the "gotcha".

They certainly have shown that they can make claims, but when you ask them to back up their claims, that's another story. They end up wiggling out of it because they haven't bothered to read any of the big long term studies.

Children, Children, Children.................can stop he said, she said, you said, I said??

:loco:

Yes, but only a few. There are places in the world (including the U.S.) where it's not uncommon to age with a lot less degenerative-disease issues.
It's more than just a few who remain healthy in those populations.

I fully support your decision to go vegan, and I do understand the health benefits that may result from this, but earlier you said:

"Dogs eat whatever they are given. You buy the dog food, put it in their dish, and they'll eat it. How would you like to be treated that way in a restaurant if the tables were turned."

That does not sound very happy to me - dreading every trip to a restaurant because you feel that you will be treated like a dog.

Restaurants are commercial operations and will serve what they can sell. If you decide to join the 2.5% you should accept that your menu choices will be very limited. Even if you manage to persuade as many people again to become vegan that would still only be 5%. Nineteen out of twenty menu items will still be off limits to you.

My statement was an intellectual construct and not a reflection of dread or unhappiness. Just expressing a desire for something better.

That's okay, I still enjoy the conversation about health and longevity. They say that in order to live a long healthy life, one must have a goal. And that's my goal.

Boy Howdy! I concur Gracie.

We already have a pipeline for this, PL - it's called The Villages Daily Sun :-)

I wish you success, PL.

Like an earlier poster, I have been hoping for more spicy food in TV's restaurants but that has been slow to happen so, to date, I have eaten spicy food at home and "made do" with the over-salted stuff that restaurants here usually serve.