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I've been reading Michael Greger's book; How Not To Die.

The basis of his book is that the typical US (and UK) diet and lifestyle is shit from a long term health point of view. And that a move to a much more vegan diet with a moderate amount of aerobic exercise will greatly improve our chances of living in good health for longer.


I think that this a very important aspect of our lives. Nothing is more valuable than our good health.

It's also an area where I'd prefer not to be too preachy, because
(a) that would make me a great big hypocrite
(b) I'd like to respect the right of every other adult to shove whatever food they want into our mouths


One thing with reading a book like How Not To Die is that I don't know enough about the subject to state whether the book is giving good sound advice or whether it stretches the vegan argument too far?

Do we have any nutritonal experts on this forum that could comment on this?

Its all a

Nobody is an expert in this and those that say they are are charlatens. There are two many variables not enough isolated raw data and two little causal understanding.

Most of the conclusions are premised upon naive corralations

If you watched the very informative Horizon programme a couple of weeks ago (might still be on iPlayer) "Clean Eating, The Dirty Truth." You would see that a very small amount of scientific fact has been stretched in all directions to justify various agendas.

The author of the China Study (which in some ways is the basis for much of this) admitted that he had shown that increasing the amount of fruit and veg and reducing meat (from average US values, bear in mind) had a small beneficial effect on health and wellbeing, but there was NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS for his conclusion that excluding meat entirely was even better still - It was just "his belief."

(This whole subject is full of dishonest quackery which might seem familiar to people with interests in other areas such as HiFi.)

Now sustainability of the food supply on a planet with reducing resources and a burgeoning population is another matter - but that is not the object of this discussion!

For what it's worth my advice is to be conscious of red and processed meat consumption (but by no means give it up,) eat more veg and fruit and try to add seeds and nuts into your diet if you don't currently eat them and all should be well.

Oh yeah, and drink less alcohol.....

I would have thought a better question is "How To Live?", if the only point of life is to avoid dying, then that’s not that much of a reason to be IMHO.

Or just drink as much alcohol as you can then you don't care when you die, as long as you die drunk. Hmmm could solve the population problem, perhaps the Russians have it right. The only country in the world you can get alcohol (Vodka) on prescription

CycleCoach wrote:If you watched the very informative Horizon programme a couple of weeks ago (might still be on iPlayer) "Clean Eating, The Dirty Truth." You would see that a very small amount of scientific fact has been stretched in all directions to justify various agendas.

The author of the China Study (which in some ways is the basis for much of this) admitted that he had shown that increasing the amount of fruit and veg and reducing meat (from average US values, bear in mind) had a small beneficial effect on health and wellbeing, but there was NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS for his conclusion that excluding meat entirely was even better still - It was just "his belief."

Beat me to it. Try this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08bhd29

Oh yeah, and drink less alcohol..... How am I ever going to get through the day. ........ hic

Lurcher300b wrote:I would have thought a better question is "How To Live?", if the only point of life is to avoid dying, then that’s not that much of a reason to be IMHO.

That right there is the gist.

We're all living now and should enjoy it for what it is. Do a little exercise at something you like, eat a bit better but don't avoid the things that you enjoy, and have a few drinks if you want to.

And no matter what you do you'll go in the end, so make sure there's some fun on the way!

Daniel Quinn wrote:Nobody is an expert in this and those that say they are are charlatens. There are two many variables not enough isolated raw data and two little causal understanding.

Most of the conclusions are premised upon naive corralations

Have you read the book?