[Stevius]

How many of you here on ICmag are vegeterians?
Any vegans arround also?

Im not a vegeterian but almost all of my friends are vegeterians and some also vegans. So I often eat vegan/vegeterian food and I really enjoy it. But I never mind to eat some meat also.
Anyway... hanging for so much time with "no-meat" people made me think after a while. Dont know.... somehow my point of view on food was changed and soon happened when I ordered a sandwich only with cheese. I stopped eating stuff like hotdogs, hamburger, kebabs, a lot of meat products (especially fast food) were canceled from my list. Somehow I paid more attention to what was I eating.
But I will still eat that fish that I caught it on my boat last time. And also some home made meat products are no problem.

Now... Im thinking..... all of my "vegeterian friends" are pot smokers. So maybe also weed has something to do with it? Maybe because you pay more attention to food you eat, because you taste things differently?

Some of friends were eating meat at first but then when they started to smoke weed after few years they eventually turned into vegeterians. Maybe just a coincidence...? Or does weed has something to do with it?

What is your experience?

[sirgrassalot]

I eat meat and will never stop eating tasty animals. Being on top of the food chain has its benefits.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Women with low levels of vitamin B12 before and after conception are at higher risk of giving birth to babies with brain or spinal cord defects, say researchers who recommend that women of childbearing age get enough of the vitamin in addition to folic acid.

In the March issue of Pediatrics, Irish and American researchers said women with low B12 had at least 2.5 times the risk of giving birth to a child with neural tube defects that can lead to partial paralysis or death, compared with women with the highest levels of the vitamin.

'Our results offer evidence that women who have adequate B12 levels before they become pregnant may further reduce the occurrence of this class of birth defects.'— Dr. James Mills

Since the vitamin is more common in meat and animal-based foods, vegans and vegetarians are at greater risk for the deficiency, the researchers said.

"Vitamin B12 is essential for the functioning of the nervous system and for the production of red blood cells," said Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethseda, Md.

"The results of this study suggest that women with low levels of B12 not only may risk health problems of their own, but also may increase the chance that their children may be born with a serious birth defect."

In the study, the team analyzed blood samples that were collected and stored from three groups of Irish women. The blood was taken between 1983 and 1990, when few pregnant women in the country took vitamin supplements.

The three groups consisted of:

* 95 women who were pregnant with a child having a neural tube defect when the blood was drawn.
* 107 women who had previously given birth to a child with a defect but whose current pregnancy was not affected.
* 76 women who were pregnant with a child having a neural tube defect when the blood was taken but were enrolled in a different study than those in the first group.

The researchers measured levels of vitamin B12 and folate — a known risk factor for neural tube defects— and compared the levels to those in samples from control groups of women whose pregnancies were unaffected by a neural tube defect.
Food and supplement sources

Women with B12 concentrations below 250 ng/L before pregnancy had about three times the risk of having a child with a neural tube defect as those with higher B12 blood levels.

Women who were considered B12 deficient — that is having levels of less than 150 ng/L — had five times the risk of women with higher levels.

"Our results offer evidence that women who have adequate B12 levels before they become pregnant may further reduce the occurrence of this class of birth defects," said the study's senior investigator, Dr. James Mills of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Mills recommended that women of childbearing age consume the recommended daily amount of vitamin B12 and at least 400 micrograms of folic acid a day.

The researchers used statistical techniques to factor out folic acid so they could focus on B12 levels. Both vitamins are linked to several important biochemical reactions, and a lack of either increases the risk of neural tube defects, they said.

Vitamin B12 is essential to maintain healthy nerve cells and red blood cells.

The vitamin is found in meat, dairy products, eggs, fish, shellfish and fortified breakfast cereals, and can also be taken as a supplement or in a multivitamin.

Ireland has a high rate of neural tube defects, in which the central nervous system fails to develop fully in the fetus during the first four weeks of pregnancy.

Neural tube defects can lead to spina bifida, a defect of the spinal cord and back bones, and less common defects of the brain such as anencephaly, when the brain doesn't develop fully.

https://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/...s.html?ref=rss

[Tennessee]

I am primarily vegetarian for the supply and demand purposes, and could care less if half the world became vegetarian or the world ate half as less meat. Maybe 3 or 4 percent of my caloric intake is meat on a weekly basis(most days I eat no meat, maybe just stock from whatever the family cooks) In all this, I've eaten meat, and just yesterday I ate korean style minnows nice and spicy with their heads and all ... they're already dead you know? if you are a firefighter it's fine to eat good meat, because IMO some people need good energy to take care of the idiot fat people who can't fit through their doors ......... ......... those people contribute, for apparently no reason, to the slaughter and disgustingly processed way of confining the energy of God's own bloody flesh into cellophane packaging...

Some have told me, they have a surplus of meat anyways, so it wouldn't matter to eat it or not...so yeah go have a steak, but maybe just have half a steak and share the other half with someone at that setting, or save it for later... ... in the long run, the burgeoning human population won't have such a huge pressure on resources through meat consumption, if you condition yourselves and your family to be mindful of eating habits, especially MEAT... btw I'm not hating on extremely obese people either, I am truly sad for their condition ... but THEIR extremism is only a mirrored reflection on American Consumption Culture.

[Stevius]

Originally Posted by Tennessee

if you are a firefighter it's fine to eat good meat, because IMO some people need good energy to take care of the idiot fat people who can't fit through their doors ......... ......... those people contribute, for apparently no reason, to the slaughter and disgustingly processed way of confining the energy of God's own bloody flesh into cellophane packaging...

HAHAHAHA

Originally Posted by Tennessee

btw I'm not hating on extremely obese people either, I am truly sad for their condition ... but THEIR extremism is only a mirrored reflection on American Consumption Culture.

[Tennessee]

sirgrassalot are you pregnant?????

I whole heartedly believe prego's should be fed VERY well... plump is healthy is in this case(not TOO plump! that's dangerous for a baby!) [being said, a diet of pure meat, milk, and exercise is the healthiest diet for humans! so, I'm all for farming of pregnant women! meat! milk! veal! doh!]

[brothertupelo]

we're not at the top of the food chain, we're just generally safe from predators. carnivores are the top of the food chain. i get really sick of hearing the top of the food chain shit. it's not funny or accurate.
unless you're chinese and eat cat.

[Tommy]

Vegan are part of the problem with global warming, they eat the cure, we omnivors are eating the problem.

[brothertupelo]

but there are something like half a billion vegetarian hindus that don't have any nutrition problems.

[Tennessee]

who said anything about a food chain???

wanna talk food chains?

humans are stupid and are TOO safe from the natural environment............

when I die feed ME to the lions ...but YOU will be MY lunch!
:muahaha

[sirgrassalot]

Originally Posted by Tennessee

sirgrassalot are you pregnant?????

I whole heartedly believe prego's should be fed VERY well... plump is healthy is in this case(not TOO plump! that's dangerous for a baby!) [being said, a diet of pure meat, milk, and exercise is the healthiest diet for humans! so, I'm all for farming of pregnant women! meat! milk! veal! doh!]

I'm a father Tenn & my kids eat tasty animals too. The girls out fish me at times, their pheromones I trust. Top of the food chain we are.