Ok I'll try to divide up my wall text a bit better this time

I totally acknowledge that people in the past, and even in present day, some people have to live a certain way in order to survive, but for the vast majority of people that doesn't apply.


Taste:
Like most of the senses in the human body, the sense of taste is in a constant state re-calibration. It's highly subjective and easily influenced over mere seconds but also long periods of time. They say it takes 3 weeks to acclimatize from things you crave, from salt to heroin. That's why most healthy eating books tell you go to cold tofurkey (see what I did there ) for 3 weeks. It's all about the brain chemistry. After 3 straight weeks you aren't craving it. (The habit might still be there but, the chemically driven cravings are gone).
Try it yourself by eating an apple before and after some soft drink. First the apple will taste sweet, and after it will taste sour. Or try decreasing salt over a 3 week period, it'll taste bland at first, but if you go back after 3 weeks it'll be way too salty.



Food science:
One of the major things stopping me from not being vegan, was the health concerns, so I read a number of books about plant-based eating.
There is a new book "How Not To Die" by Dr. Michael Greger. If you want scientific proof of a plant based diet this the one stop shop. 500 pages explaining tens of thousands of studies, some going for decades and involving hundreds of thousands of people. I was blown away at the simple fact that so many studies get done. Most of them are interventional studies also, meaning they are able to show cause and effect (unlike observational or corrolational studies, as he explains in the book). 150 pages of this book alone are lists of references to studies. It's pure unbiased science. (It's not a vegan book either in case you are worried about him being biased).

At the risk of spoiling the book - whole foods like apples and broccoli doesn't give you cancer, in fact they go a long way to preventing it, some bean based foods are as effective as chemotherapy, and without the side effects. I thought it sounded it ridiculous, but the science is valid.
Of course you can visit his website he explains all new research almost daily at nutritionfacts.org in 1 or 2 minute videos.
He also has a checklist phone app called Dr.Greger's Daily Dozen.

There are other authors too, most of these ones have recipes too, such as Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Cadwell Esselstyn, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr Joel Furhman.
Health-wise it's the best thing you can do for yourself. And if like me you thought eating healthy meant salads, you'd be as wrong as I was I haven't had a salad for years. My blood results and vitamin levels are exactly what the books said they would be.

Try it for 3 weeks, but make sure you do it the right way as explained in the books, and you'll be shouting from roof tops about what a change it's made to your life. The other thing is, you get to eat more, and the more you eat it's healthier. What a weird concept in a world where we are constantly being told to calorie count (it doesn't work btw).

Environmental:
I've read a lot about ethics, reason and evidence based thinking, as well as nutrition and health (as a result of my own skepticism). So I could and I enjoy talking about these all day long. On the environmental side of things, I'm not as aware, but there some documentaries such as Earthlings and Cowspiracy which paint a pretty clear picture.
Anyone can do the maths even at a rough level - there are 56 billion animals bred and slaughtered each year. Feeding 56 billion animals (many of which are bigger than people) takes a lot more food than a mere 7 billion. Therefore it must take more crops and land to feed them, not to mention the land the animals occupy themselves, as well as the land they destroy by dump their waste products (feces are toxic in those concentrations, where as plant waste, is just compost)
The other thing is that many of these crops are grown in countries where people are starving, using up the fertile land to feed our livestock instead of the people. How f'd up is that?
It's reasons like that why countries like the Netherlands are asking their people to not eat meat more than 3 meals a week.

Productivity and economics:
Countries like Finland have government assistance to switch farmers from dairy to berry. Because they got sick of being sick:
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dietary-guidelines-from-dairies-to-berries/

The world won't go vegan overnight, and realistically it will never be 100% vegan (people still smoke after all). There will be more than enough time to transition. And surely you aren't suggesting that we should eat meat and dairy to keep someone employed? I don't want anyone to lose their job, but to do something pointlessly cruel just to keep a person working seems wrong.

Animal industries are also heavily subsidized in many countries, so if they were to stop being subsidized that's money freed up for other projects, such as the ones in Finland.

The last bit:
If you eat a plant based diet, just like the cow you'll never have constipation, thanks to all of the fibre
When it comes to enzymes, humans are lactose intolerant because after the age of 2 the enzyme lactase stops being made by the body (unless you keep drinking it). Humans also don't have another enzyme called uricase (true omnivores, and carnivores do), which is the enzyme used to break down the protein called uric acid. As you might know gout is caused by too much uric acid, forming crystals in your joints.
However humans have a multitude of enzymes for digesting carbohydrate rich foods (plants). And no carbs don't make fat despite what the fitness industry would have you believe (as the books above explain).
Appealing to history as well, when they found fossilized human feces, it contained so much fibre it was obvious that humans ate primarily a plant based diet. (Animal foods don't contain fibre).

The reasons why you wouldn't want a whale to eat krill for you is:
1. Food is a packaged deal - there is nothing harmful in something like a potato. But feed a lot of potatoes to a pig, and eat the pig, you're getting some of the nutrients of a potato, but also heaps of stuff you're body doesn't need from the pig, like cholesterol, saturated fat, sulfur and methionine containing amino acids etc And no fibre. (low fibre means constipation and higher rates of colon cancer).
2. Your body's health is also dependent on the bacteria living inside you. (fun fact, most the weight of your poop is bacteria!) The bacteria inside you needs certain types of food to live. If you eat meat, you're starving your micro-organisms, and the less good bacteria you have, the less they produce certain chemicals and nutrients , and you get a knock on effect. The fewer the good bacteria also makes room for bad bacteria which make chemicals you don't want.
Coincidentally, if you eat 3 potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you have all the protein you need - it worked for Matt Damon on Mars right?

To be fair, by it's very nature, the Medical Industry should NOT get to the point where "Procedure A will cost you $______" or be subject to solid quotes. Most of the things you purchase that way, cars, houses, TVs, etc. are high-volume testaments to physics and industrial chemistry. When you're talking about something as fragile and complex as a human body, this isn't the way to go. If your alternator goes bad, you get towed into the shop and get a new one. If your appendectomy goes wrong, you could die or be affected for the rest of your life.

Equating medicine with consumer purchases is ridiculous and idiotic.

That being said, yes, your medical system needs serious work.

I actually did this as my high school chemistry project. I used 70% rubbing alcohol, 90% rubbing alcohol, and pure ether (don't try that at home, kids). You can get a number of different effects, only some of which were seen here.

As I recall, there were 5 distinct effects I noticed.
First, and most exciting, the jet. This was just a 2-6 foot jet of flame out the top, I surmised it was caused by low oxygen inside the glass making for a poor partial burn inside until the pressure pushes out enough unburnt vapor to burn outside. Depending on the fuel (both vapor level and fuel type), this could last up to 10 seconds.
There's a 'neck burn', where the flame hovers just inside the neck and just burns there, apparently in equilibrium, like an oil lamp.
There's the fire ball, which is just as it sounds, a round ball of fire, usually hovering in the top 1/3 of the bottle, sometimes bouncing up and down, but always centered.
There's the flash, where the entire interior flashes repeatedly, as seen in this video. This can end much more violently than it did here, 'pinging' the bottle loudly as the flashes get more powerful. When this happened with ether, we stopped, afraid we were making a glass bomb surrounded by high school kids.
Finally was the fire plane, also seen in this video, which can ascend, descend, or hover in place. This was my favorite effect, especially when it hovered and lasted up to 30 seconds long.

Good times, good times....FIRE GOOD.

Could be, perhaps that's a safer option as well? (chamber integrity). Traditional Si/SiO CCD's are OK in the presence of high fields though. Modified linescan CCD's with MOS sensors replacing the photodiodes have actually been used as magnetic sensors for high discrimination applications in different fields in physics and chemistry, located at times in high pressure vessels at the focal point of some fairly high fields (12 to 20 T). But I still can't figure out how to use my GoPro. Have fun.

...Ummm... Yes?

In the same way that "every scone produced in England *HAS* to be radioactive" (because scones are made from flour, eggs, and other ingredients that contain C14). Or, I could say "Queen Elizabeth discovered to be radioactive", because she is organic (in the Chemistry sense, meaning "containing carbon"). Or, you know ... EVERYTHING organic is "radioactive"; humans, animals, food, trees, etc. etc.

It seems very click-baity to draw attention to a US law that all alcohol must come from plants / organic (again, Chemistry rather than Hipster definition) sources by claiming that all US-made alcohol "must be radioactive".

I hope you don't feel like that I'm pushing anything onto you. I'd like to just present the facts. I wasn't vegan until I turned 33, so I'm certainly not judging or trying to give out this information in order to put anyone down or elevate myself. I'm not trying to troll, I'm not trying to out-do you. I'm also typing this with limited time, so apologies if some of it sounds frank. (The videos below do a better job than me anyway).

1) A proper plant based diet makes it 8 times less likely for cancer cells to grow. There is a reason why 3rd world countries (that have largely plant based diets due to poverty) don't get cancers us westerners have. Also the #1 killer in the western world is cardiovascular disease, in the US alone one person dies every 8 seconds from it. Which is around 400, 000 people a year.

I know you're sceptical. I was too. So here's some actual science from actual doctors, who have come these conclusions on proper peer reviewed and non biased / industry funded research:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rNY7xKyGCQ2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZtPGyLaiHE1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYTf0z_zVs03
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XVf36nwraw4


2)Vegans aren't anti-choice, they are pro life, pro planet. The actions of people eating animal products goes way further than a person choosing to eat something(sure they are typically ignorant of the consequences, as most of pre-vegans were too). When a large portion of the planet chooses to eat animal products it effects everyone, because it's destroying the planet through global warming, deforestation, dumping of animal agriculture waste and so on. It kills more animals than just ones being brutalised in cages. It will eventually kill us too. To me it seems like a bad idea to destroy the only place in the universe that we can currently live.
So by eating animal products you're really making a choice for you, for me, for my hypothetical grandchildren, and of course for the animal that almost certainly wants to keep being alive. So as a vegan I'd like you refrain for making choices that impact my life, and I'm standing up for the voiceless animals who would certainly object to your choice too.

3) As you (hopefully) saw in at least one of the videos above, there is nothing in meat which cannot be obtained from a plant source (and without all of the bad stuff that comes with meat).



Your idea of a farm with humanely raised animals is a good start, but it's just not practical, the earth isn't big enough to meet demand. It's also still highly unethical as you still kill the animals at an early age in order to harvest their flesh.

You have a picture of two dogs in your avatar. I'm sure if someone decided to schedule their lives to end early for any reason, let alone to eat them, you'd find that pretty immoral right? You no doubt treat your dogs very well, but that doesn't make it OK to kill when they reach adolescence. If I said I wanted to eat your dogs (I don't of course) then any reason you came up with applies still to any farm animals that you currently feel fine with eating.

The animals also aren't stupid and they're aware of what's going on. My grandparents owned a massive farm with cows/pigs/rabbits/chickens and crops as well. They were living very comfortable lives as far as farm animals go, but they did not like it when you approached them, they knew what was waiting for them.
When you see typical farm animals that are truly free this is what they look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIF3BYBXZWA
They behave like pets, even cows kick a ball around.

Also cows milk is only created for when the cow is pregnant. Even if the cow is living in cow utopia, if it is getting milked then that's milk that should have gone to a calf. It was most likely artificially impregnated, and also most likely bought from someone that breeds female cows, and kills the male cows (since you only need one bull to harvest the semen).
When you really think about it, even the best treated animals are being breed and used to make someone money as the primary goal. That is immoral.



So what it really comes down to is taste. The ethics, the environmentalism, the health don't play a role in the debate at all, and hopefully one of those things is important to you, perhaps all 3.

Being animal product free isn't as hard as you think, it's as simple as swapping out a few ingredients here and there. It's not all about eating broccoli and kale. You'll still be eating burritos, burgers, pizzas, pastas, curries etc. Just slightly different and before you know it, you'll barely know the difference, and eventually prefer them that way.

And this is probably the part I found the hardest to believe myself, but once I knew about it, veganism became the easiest thing in the world. Taste is completely influenced by the foods you eat, because of brain chemistry. I thought I could never stop eating two things: cheese and chocolate. After about a month of not eating them (and yes it takes a little bit of effort towards the 3 week mark) you will break the dopamine effect in your brain and you'll never want to eat them again. I can eat vegan cheese and dairy free chocolate, but it does absolutely nothing for me these days. This is coming from someone that wouldn't eat regular chocolate, I had to have the good stuff, everyday. The cravings get pretty intense at the 3 week mark, I won't lie, but then one day you realise you've not had the cravings for several days.
When it comes to meats, even if they are well done, all I can smell is oil and blood. Eggs all I smell is sulphur. I find all of that quite repugnant and I see them for what they really are, rather than what my dopamine recepters tell me.

Now of course you can be unhealthy vegan, and eat all of the oreos, chips, and dairy free chocolate you want. That's up to you, either way the planet and animals don't care which way you go about it

Thanks

There's actually a bit more to the chemistry of smelting than he mentions. It's not only the higher temperatures that are important, carbon monoxide is used to extract the base metal from the ore (which is usually an oxide).

If he's been relying on ancient sources, they may well have not mentioned the chemistry since oxidation and reduction were only really properly described in the 18th century (oxygen was discovered in 1772) and not all historians have a good grounding in chemistry.

*ban

Chemistry World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6bgI6vmSHA

Good read.

That's kind of the 'permanent damage' I meant, but I'm really thinking of the reverse from what they focused on. They were mostly talking about positive mental changes (more 'openness') that were lasting or permanent, I was thinking about the negative mental changes that can happen after a 'bad trip', like fear, anxiety, and distress, which can also be long lasting or permanent. I was also thinking about people who's brain chemistry is just not compatible with DMT (or whatever it might be cut with if bought on the black market) who might have physical, brain chemistry issues exacerbated or caused outright.

I'm also partially thinking of those who commit suicide either during or after taking DMT. That's pretty permanent.

Mammalian brain chemistry is similar, which is why rats can be used to find out things about humans. Pretty simple science, that.
Your premise is that ALL rats are happy, because they are all being rats? That sounds absolutely insane, and is just like saying all humans are happy because they are all being humans. It's easily proven wrong by a tiny bit of observation. Rats are not all happy, even well cared for pet rats have bad days.

If a 'relationship with our creator' causes happiness, why is it that SO large a majority, if not all 'religious' people seem so angry and upset ALL the time? I suggest it's because reality does not fit what they've been taught, and they choose to believe the teachings rather than reality. That would upset anyone.

If 'sin' causes death, pain, and disaster in one's life as you suggest, please tell me why (good) religious people aren't all rich, happy, healthy, empathetic, reasonable, thinking people, and also please tell me how atheist people can possibly be successful (and please note, repeated studies have shown that atheists are both more successful and happier people in general).
Also, if the 'wage of sin' is death, why isn't there a single non-sinner 300+ years old proving your point?

Who asked that guy to pay for my sins'?!? Now I have to go do them all over again. That bastard! (both figuratively and literally)
Also, what kind of self serving tripe is it that 'he died for your sins, but only if you serve him'. That's not altruistic in any way shape or form, it's a totally unprovable, 100% self serving idea put forth by churches to get your money.

Religion is the cage, the bars made of your 'sin'. To those that don't believe, there's no cage, and no bars, just a bunch of people stuck in place claiming they can't move because 'god', and a bunch of atheists walking around 'free'.

Oh you drugheads...don't know basic chemistry

Cool -- I vividly remember my High School Chemistry class demonstration on this, with a pea-sized bit zipping around the surface of the water.

I want to see a big brick of it (1kg or so) in a similarly breakable but enclosing container and held 10m or so underwater in a lake (or something) by a wire mesh cage. Would chopping it up into smaller pieces to maximize the surface area increase the effect? Or would the violence of the reaction make cavitation / hydrogen bubbles that push the water out of way and make the reaction happen in multiple phases as the water gets pushed away and returns?

Just for once it's chemistry and not marketing!

This article on a proposed replacement explains the use of Ag nanoparticles as an antibacterial agent. Google the term and you'll also find a lot of articles worrying about the safety of silver nanoparticles in clothing. The idea is that antibacterial clothing will smell less, but some people worry about the safety of this, and detergent tends to deactivate it anyway.

In the case of this book though, I would expect most of the silver to stay in the filter but even if not it's likely to be safer than drinking contaminated water.

Vaping is a great way to quit smoking. If you want to quit smoking, do that. Don't buy the drugstore stuff (Blu, etc.), though. Look for a shop or website that specializes in it and buy proper equipment and quality e-liquid.

I prefer to make my own e-liquid because quality control is easier buying ingredients separately (reputable suppliers will provide test documentation from third-party chemistry labs per batch). Also, it's much cheaper to make your own.

A high quality setup (battery, tank, coils) costs about the same as a carton of cigarettes. Mixing my own liquid (not hard, three ingredients, just mix 'em up), I spend about a dollar a week on that when you average it out.

If you did high school bio, think about what you covered that has any sort of influence on medicine... =)

Frog or rat dissection? Covered that in Bio 101 in the first year of my Applied Chemistry degree (and yes, you can give a rat a Columbian necktie... . Photosynthesis? Mating?

Yeah, Bio was pretty much introducing you to broad concepts and it's nothing that doesn't get rehashed in the first 6 months of Uni via intro subjects. I think of it more as a way to dip the toe in the pool and see if the subject matter excites you enough to try and turn it in to a career.

eg. At 40 now (and having forgotten my chem degree and gone in to IT as a sys admin after working as a chef, bouncer etc), I could go back to uni barely remembering anything about chemistry and start from scratch and be none the worse for it. The keystones you talk about are literacy and numeracy, that's about it. And they are learned in primary school.

Oh sure, it helps if you can do some higher math, but English lit? Physics? Drama? Almost nothing you do at high school has any real defining affect on most of what you do as an adult. It's more like a sampler platter, and of course a way of grading students (on a curve of course, we can't have people's scores based on their own merit) to distinguish what tertiary studies they should be eligible for.

School should be about igniting curiousity as much as practical skills for life. I did "Home Economics" (ie. cooking/sewing/budgets etc) and typing (on real mechanical typewriters no less) as opposed to wood/metal shop ( I was awful at shop). My home ec teacher was always interested in making different food, so we tried some pretty out there things in grade 8 (~13 years old), and I've always been interested in cooking since. Similarly, learning to touch type has made my life radically simpler, particularly in IT (try writing a 40 page instruction manual hunting and pecking).

Most of the high school grads we see as cadets or trainees are essentially useless and have to be taught from scratch anyway. Most of the codified BS we have these days doesn't prepare kids for life, doesn't encourage critical thinking or creativity, it a self justification to keep schools open.