That's me, though. I know that it bothers a lot of people to gain a size or two. Although I can understand the desire to lose weight, I really think that desire becomes more of a psychosis when it leads someone to not only curb their intake of food, but to convince themselves that a dramatic lifestyle change is "healthy". What's more, people in this state of mind will not only go to ridiculous lengths to adhere to this supposedly healthy diet, they'll also become so devoted to it that they believe its their only hope to live a healthy life.
These diet fads are cultism at it's mind-fucking finest. The ideas and philosophies are pitched at people who are at a loss, who feel socially-excluded and vulnerable due to their perceived flaws. The core principles at the heart of these diets have a ring of truth to them, and they make the people who follow them feel a twinge of superiority because they think they've learned some special secret to a better life. They take pride in making whatever sacrifice they're making because it (in their minds) puts them a cut above everyone else. If that's not a recipe for a cult, I don't know what is.
The lifestyle changes adopted to adhere to the diet exclude you FURTHER from the rest of society by way of eliminating the social element to eating. People LIKE to eat together. One of the basic ways that we stay connected or even get to know one another is usually through sharing a meal and conversation together. When you decide to follow a very counter-culture diet that drastically limits what you can and can't eat, it narrows what restaurants you can eat at and whose house you can eat at. If you're vegan, you'll end up reaching out to find other vegans to fill the void you're experiencing from a lack of communal meal options, and to validate your reasons for excluding these opportunities from your life.
3: Low-Fat Diet
This is actually a fairly harmless, albeit fairly ineffective diet. In the short term, reducing fat intake keeps your overall cholesterol levels in check, and makes it easier to maintain your weight. It's not GOOD for your heart to eat nothing but high-fat foods, but its not going to kill you to get a little crazy with the cheez-whiz every now and then. The problem being, as much as the idea of cancer and heart disease prevention is linked in the collective mind of most people and medical professionals, a massive eight year study was done on the effectiveness of a low-fat diet against those diseases and came up with.. well, nothing. The group that ate anything it damn well pleased ended up having the same rate of heart disease and cancer occurrence as the group on a strict low fat, high fiber diet. When I say low-fat, I mean these people were not allowed to have cream cheese on bagels, butter on toast, or even oil in salad dressings. At the end of the study, the occurrences of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and obesity were so similar between both groups, that differences in results between the two were deemed "statistically insignificant".
I'm not suggesting that anyone go chow down on a tub of bacon-flavored lard in celebration of this study, but it probably wouldn't hurt anything to go ahead and have that ice cream after dinner. Apparently, cancer doesn't give a shit about your "rocky road" dependency.
Dietary Cult Risk Rating : 1/10 - Sticking to a low-fat diet doesn't come with a lot of pomp and self-righteousness. It just makes you turn down most offered food in favor of sitting alone every morning, eating dry toast and black decaf. Sounds like ... prison?
2: Low-Carb Diet
Low-carb diets, like the Atkins Diet, help people lose weight by initiating ketosis in the body. Ketosis occurs when the body is at a deficit for carbohydrates (energy), and has to resort to burning up what resources are stored in the body's fat supply to provide itself enough energy to maintain function. That MIGHT sound good, because in a way you're kick-starting a natural mechanism in the body that will UTILIZE all that fat that your body has packed away over the years. Besides, low-carb diets encourage snacking on things like peanuts, pork rinds, and beef jerky. A freakin' bacon-wrapped, cheese-smothered, smoked New York strip steak is actually low-carb diet friendly. WHAT THE FUCK? YES!!! YES!!! THERE IS A GOD AND HIS NAME BE ATKINS!! How can that be bad?
Well, for one thing, don't try this if you're diabetic. It could send you into diabetic ketoacidosis, which could lead to coma or death.
Ketosis is a process that's NOT easy on the body. It's a process that costs the body a great expenditure of energy in an effort to get additional energy out of stored fat, but also protein. In case you aren't aware, muscles and other organs are largely comprised of the same proteins ketosis will break down. By denying yourself carbs and starchy, carb-filled foods, you're forcing your body to rip itself up to support itself. That's like fixing holes in your roof by patching it with the siding on your house, and then when that siding won't cover the hole without extra support, you knock some of the bricks out of the side of your house to put on top of it. FUCKING BRILLIANT!
From Buzzle.com
Some of the symptoms of ketosis are:
The presence of a sickly sweet smelling, fruity breath. This peculiar smell is due to the presence of acetone bodies. This bad breath may be offensive to some people, but is a classic sign of ketosis
Tiredness and fatigue is often seen in the initial stages of ketosis
Headache
Excessive thirst
Weakness and dizziness
Nausea and stomach aches, accompanied by abdominal pain
Problems with sleeping
Regarding low-carb diets, in general, The American Heart Association states: "Individuals who follow these diets are therefore at risk for compromised vitamin and mineral intake, as well as potential cardiac, renal [kidney], bone, and liver abnormalities overall." Low carb diets like the Atkins diet may also hasten the onset of type II diabetes.
Dietary Cult-Risk Rating: 6/10 - Many people will believe your diet is a bad idea, what with the whole "low-fat diet" belief still making the rounds. However, while you're busy thinking you're a badass as you shed that first large amount of water weight, not only will you be doing damage to your OWN body, you'll probably be trying to convert all of your friends to this awesome meat-gnawing, potato-eschewing diet. You're likely to draw a lot of unwitting saps into the fold. Despite the TONS of websites warning people away from low-carb diets, most people don't bother to learn about their own basic body functions, let alone worry about them failing as a result of trying to lose weight.
1 - Vegetarian/Vegan Diet
Oh, hippies, how weary I am of you, in all your many incarnations..
I can understand the desire to abstain from eating things that have faces. I really can. However, there's a really big difference between maintaining a meatless diet for personal reasons, and deluding yourself into thinking that your personal reasons equal out to meat-eating being unhealthy for human beings. We are OMNIVORES. Get the fuck over it. On the bright side for vegetarians, being an omnivore means you can actually survive without meat, though I personally don't see it as much more than survival if there's no bacon involved.
Vegetarianism isn't so bad, despite a notable lack of cured pork products. A lot of vegetarians eat dairy, cheese, or maybe eggs, but draw the line at actual meat. These are the kind you see that clearly aren't eating any healthier than anyone else at the restaurant, but make a big fucking deal about ordering the vegetarian plate. I may, in fact, be a tad bitter from some of my experiences with vegetarians. I'm sure there are plenty of vegetarians who aren't, by nature, a giant pain in the ass to all of their omnivorous friends and family. I have surely just had a (long) run of bad luck with vegetarians who:
- Like to make a point about your eating meat and how much it grosses them out
- Constantly go into personal crises about what sellouts they are for eating dairy products
- Embarrass everyone who will still go to a restaurant with them by talking about how much better they could have made this "at home" with soy and tree nut products INSTEAD of dirty cow products.
- Make comparisons about what you're eating to demonstrate why they wouldn't eat it
- "To me, it's no different than taking a piece of dog shit and handing it to me on a plate. That's how
dirty and nasty that burger you're eating right now looks to me" - actual quote
- Come over to your house and talk about how much it stinks because you've "cooked dead things"
- Maintain this diet for "health reasons" yet remain the sickliest, fattest OR most underweight, most unhealthy people you know.
- Refuse to accept "western medicine", relying instead on "traditional eastern healing" methods that involve ingredients they can't pronounce, don't really research so that they can use them properly, and that come from countries that wouldn't use that outdated shit anymore if you PAID them, because they, instead, rely on "western medicine".
-Always need someone to talk them out of the bathroom, drive them to the doctor, or otherwise handle business for them when their malnutritious lifestyle ends up biting them in the ass.
..and that's just vegetarians.. you know, the ones that actually eat non-meat animal products. Vegans are like vegetarians, but about ten times worse with an extra helping of self-righteousness and delusion.
On a vegan diet, no animal products or by products are allowed. This means no cheese, no dairy, no eggs, no standard gelatin (which is made from beef), or anything else that comes from animals or fish. This is a great idea in theory if you love animals, and I do... but not enough to refrain from eating some of them. There are several nutrients that the human body needs that are not easily found in a standard vegan diet, and I venture to say are usually obtained in insufficient amounts by way of vegan cuisine. Here's a few of them, from The Independent, a British news publication :
Nutrients that everyone needs
B12
Because this vitamin is mainly found in meat, dairy products and eggs, vegans must get it from other sources such as supplements, fortified breakfast cereals and Marmite. Deficiency can lead to irreversible nervous system damage.
Vitamin D
Our skins make vitamin D when exposed to the sun's ultraviolet rays. But with desk-bound jobs, long winters and unpredictable weather, it is not always possible to get enough. Vitamin D is crucial for bone growth in children, and deficiency can result in rickets. Oily fish is one of the best dietary sources, but vegans can obtain it from fortified breakfast cereals and margarine. People living in Scotland may need to take greater care over vitamin D, as may people from cultures that require them to cover up.
Calcium
Found in dairy products, this is essential for strong bones. It is often lacking in a vegan diet unless taken as supplement.
Iron
Without sufficient iron, vegans and vegetarians can become anaemic. Deficiency can also delay growth in toddlers. Iron is commonly found in meat, but vegetarians can source iron from pulses and leafy green vegetables.
Calories
Although childhood obesity is an issue today, not enough calories can mean children don't grow properly. This can be a problem in high-fibre diets.
Protein
High-biological-value protein is found in meat, fish, eggs and dairy products. Low-biological-value protein is found in nuts, pulses and wholegrains. Separately, the latter don't contain all the essential amino acids, but do when combined correctly. Knowledge of which foods to mix together is therefore crucial.
I'll venture to say it because it's TRUE. In an average person's day, with a schedule that probably includes a job, or school, or kids, or all three.. how much time does said average person have to make sure you balance out each and every meal to ensure that you have at least sufficient amounts of necessary nutrients present in your food? Most people DO NOT have the time or even the inclination to do that (even if, ideally, they should), which is why most processed food is supplemented, or "enriched", with nutrients.
Most vegetarians and vegans won't eat anything processed or with "additives" if they can help it, so they don't even get that minute amount of supplements found in basic every day foods. Sure, the argument is that vegans take nutritional supplements to make up for whatever they're not getting in their diet, which is a great idea in theory, but not all supplements are created equal and they don't necessarily absorb properly in pill or powder form.What's worse is that vegans and vegetarians do, in fact, bring their kids along for the ride.
This story, also from The Independent, details a vegan mother realizing the damage her eating habits had done to her children.
"One morning over breakfast, Holly Paige looked at her daughter and realised things weren't right. Lizzie should have been flourishing. Instead, her cheeks were pinched, she was small for her age, and although she had skinny arms and legs, her belly was big and swollen. When Lizzie smiled, Paige suddenly noticed her upper front teeth were pitted with holes.
"I was absolutely horrified," recalls Paige."
In 2007, a vegan couple from Atlanta were given life sentences over the death of their six week old infant son, whose diet to that point had consisted of apple juice and soy milk. Of course, these people being vegans, full of themselves, and so certain that they knew better than EVERYONE ELSE, delivered the child at home without all that bothersome western medicine getting in the way. Why they didn't so much as bother to breastfeed the baby or even feed it formula is beyond me. At six weeks old, he died weighing 3 1/2 pounds. The parents claimed that they didn't think anything was wrong with him until a few minutes before he died.Even in the cases of breastfeeding vegetarian mothers, those babies are known to experience massive developmental delays as reported by the Centers for Disease Control. Another case in 2003 involved a vegan couple from Queens, NY, whose 15 month old weighed ten pounds and had no teeth due to malnutrition. This baby was not breastfed or given formula, was delivered at home, was NOT given immunizations, and was also suffering from rickets and an inability to sit up or talk.
From azcentral.com
On April 23, 2005, Blair Parker called 911 because his 3-year-old daughter seemed to be having a seizure.
Doctors in the emergency room found that the girl was emaciated - she weighed just 13 pounds - and they asked to examine Parker's other two children.
His 11-year-old daughter was the size of a 5-year-old, and his 9-year-old son was the size of a 3-year-old. All of the children had been fed a diet that Parker and his wife misguidedly believed was a proper vegan diet, meaning that they eschewed all meat and fish and even dairy products
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/07/04/20080704parker0704.html#ixzz1ZhOICqiI
From TimesOnline UK:
A 12-YEAR-OLD girl in Scotland brought up by her parents on a strict vegan diet has been admitted to hospital with a degenerative bone condition said to have left her with the spine of an 80-year-old woman.
Doctors are under pressure to report the couple to police and social workers amid concerns that her health and welfare may have been neglected in pursuit of their dietary beliefs.
The girl, who has been fed on a strict meat and dairy-free diet from birth, is said to have a severe form of rickets and to have suffered a number of fractured bones.
Read more:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4087734.ece
Dietary Cult-Risk Rating - 9/10 - I'd give it a full 10 for indoctrination at birth, but it seems that the kids aren't living long enough for that to count.
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