6 Signs That You're Taking Your Diet Too Seriously

No matter how much time you spend online arguing with people about diet/nutrition, it's too much time. Rarely do these interactions have any worth. Take, for example, the vegan guy who trolled my YouTube channel this week (read the comments). He left several ridiculous comments, like "Oh Eggs, Yummy! One of the cheapest ways to insure you get cancer and/or heart disease!" and "Well there is actually nothing out there that beats the scientific research that was done on the China Study (a popular vegan book)." He really has no idea how much of a jerk he was being. He takes his diet ideology, veganism, far too seriously and personally.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing has become very common... diets are becoming religions... I don't care if it's vegan, vegetarian, paleo, raw vegan, low-carb, low-fat, or anything else, what you eat should not take over your life and turn you into an ignorant zealot. Sometimes we need to check ourselves. Here are 6 signs that you're taking your diet too seriously.

Silly Adults... Even Kids Know it's Wrong to Eat Animals! (VIDEO)

As I was browsing Facebook the other night, just about to go to bed, I came across an interesting link that fired me up and kept my up far past my bedtime... an article called "Vegetarianism Demystified by a Toddler". It links to a YouTube video, which I'll just embed here for your convenience... voila!



The video has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from YouTube users. Nearly every comment praises this child for being an irresistible, sweet little boy with a big heart...  See?? He's only 3, even a TODDLER knows it's wrong to eat animals!! What an inspiration!!!

Okay. Fine. That's your opinion. I, on the other hand, saw it differently. Here is how I interpreted his message...

Little Luiz Antonio is just sitting down to eat his octopus gnocchi, when he begins to question the ethics of eating an animal. After a little back and forth with his mother, Luiz decides we shouldn't be eating animals because they're cute, and because every living thing deserves to be a winner in life... all of them all at the same time. If there's one thing Luiz is sure of, this is it. It would just be so great if we could all live forever and ever, and we could all live with the animals and pet each other and cuddle. Everyone could be friends. Everyone in the entire world. We'll be pen pals and Skype friends and tweet each other and eat grass and we'll never have any reason to fight. For ever and ever.

Is Subclinical B12 Deficiency Aging Us Prematurely?

I did a little research the other day on vitamin B12 for my Advanced Nutrition class at UConn, and I wrote this little blurb for our online discussion.  I thought it was incredibly interesting and something everyone should hear, so I cleaned it up a little and put it on the blog. Because everyone reads my blog.  Everyone.  You ain't cool.  

And yes, that means I have a higher standard for my blog posts than I do for my school assignments.  I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.  But it's definitely a thing.

A little background on B12.  It's the one essential vitamin that's only present in animal foods, meaning vegans are shit out of luck (except for maybe supplementing with algae... maybe).  It's present in just about every animal food out there, and especially high in organ meats like liver.  The problem with B12, especially as we age, is that there are a lot of things that have to go right for B12 to be absorbed correctly.  We need enough stomach acid, adequate pancreatic function, proper digestion and absorption in the small intestine... overall there's a lot of room for error, especially in older adults.  Even if we're eating enough B12, that doesn't necessarily mean we're absorbing it. 

Okay enough of that, here it is...

Vegetarians Live Longer than Meat-Eaters

You may be shocked by the title of this post.  Have I changed my tune?  Am I finally giving up meat and going vegan??  Fear not, my friends, it's simply a catchy title I used to draw you in. But it is the topic of an article I read today entitled "Vegetarians have longer life expectancy than meat eaters, study finds".  The study they're referring to is one that followed 96,000 Canadian citizens, thousands of which were Seventh-day Adventists, who are vegetarians (supposedly).  The study isn't yet complete, but the preliminary results were reported at last weekend's Food and Nutrition Conference and Exposition (FNCE) in Philadelphia.  Although I was in attendance at the conference, I did not see the presentation on this Seventh-day Adventist study.  I would have loved to be there, but instead I chose to see a lecture on food blogging, which, incidentally, I am doing right now.  Unfortunately I couldn't be everywhere at once... and I'm fresh out of time travel crystals.

So I was happy to come across this article today and find out what I missed.  Here's the lowdown... Seventh-day Adventist men lived on average 9.5 years longer than other men, and women lived on average 6.1 years longer than other women.  That's a pretty significant chunk of extra life.  But is it the vegetarian diet?  Or is is something else that keeps them truckin'?  Maybe we should learn a little more about these Adventists...