Thoughts on the Pritikin Diet
This doesn't specifically discuss vegetarian diets and isn't the most scientific thing in the world but at its core is a topic that I'm interested in frequently, especially when reading this thread.
My diet is dominated by high fat meats. I don't intentionally eat any vegetables (I do eat some but I have no rule about getting x number of servings of vegetables a day). There are some guys I look up to who have gone literally 100% carnivore for 6+ months at a time (
Zero Carb Interview: Kevin Fenderson | Eat Meat. Drink Water. <-- this guy mods the low carb forum on myfitnesspal that I'm very active in).
Recently, there was chatter about a diet involving obtaining 90% of their calories from (good/non-refined) carbs, almost entirely rice I believe, and seeing the exact same benefits as low carb diets offer.
Frequently I see posts in this thread talking about the benefits of limiting or completely eliminating meat with regards to heart health, insulin health markers, even the potential to limit cancer risk. I find this fascinating, because I eat almost literally the exact opposite diet as advocated in the original discussion here, and I see consistent research on a low carb, high fat diet dominated by eating meat offering the exact same benefits, including benefits with regard to cancer:
Ketogenic Diets and Cancer - The Current State of Research. Anecdotally in addition to my weight loss so far, I've also achieved normal blood pressure, normal cholesterol, normal markers for diabetes and more generally and more importantly insulin resistence... getting ~70% of my calories from fat, much of it saturated fat, and not caring at all about my vegetable intake. Most folks in this thread achieve the exact same results by limiting their meat intake massively, focusing on lean meats (which I shun), and eating a heavily plant based diet. I find this fascinating.
I'm not really going anywhere with this, I was just thinking about the general idea when I saw this thread bumped today, and then saw this post about insulin linked in a low carb forum and figured I'd ramble a bit here. I enjoy reading the stuff that gets posted when this thread is bumped, and love seeing the different ways that different folks are able to find the best ways to get healthy. It sometimes feels to me like, as long as you ignore the shit that comes out of FDA recommendations, you'll be A-OK :P