And what exactly does veganism have to do with alcohol consumption? The vast majority of alcohol is vegan friendly.

Vegans have nothing to gain from decreased alcohol consumption.


----
Also Dr.Greger makes no claims. He simply reads out the research from a world wide scope of researchers, none of which are vegan.

And cherry picking what exactly? He's presented literally 10s of thousands of research papers all from unrelated researchers. And it's not like he's picking out some fringe groups, he's quoting the biggest health organisations in the world.

While it's easy to call him a cherry picker, I challenge anyone to find any credible evidence of cherry picking. I'm yet to hear back from someone over the last 6 years.

And I also challenge you to find an article that isn't funded or tied to the egg/milk/beef/fish industry which claims that eating x animal product is healthy.

Even easier, find an industry funded study which shows the detrimental effects of their own product. You won't, because they are inherently biased - an industry would never publish something that would hurt their bottom line. And no he doesn't ignore or cherry pick around industry funded studies, he exposes their tricks and data manipulation as well. That's not cherry picking, that's proper analysis.

And actually thanks to the freedom of information act, we can see how many studies they hide from us (when they don't like the results), and only publish the ones that suit their revenue centered agenda.

And this is why he's labelled a cherry picker - revenue loss. Broccoli ain't making anyone rich.

Let me put it into perspective:

He did a few video on how those WIFI sensitivity diseases are fake, and the comments are insane - because it's hurting people's income. And this is a pretty niche market, so you can imagine what a billion dollar industry would attempt to do to discredit him. Of course, they never address the research, just him.

From Media Bias website: " Science Based Medicine debunks one by one, many of Dr. Gregers claims. They also claim that NutritionFacts cherry picks information that will always favor veganism. NutritionFacts.org does provide some valuable information and certainly a diet high in fruits and vegetables is preferred, but Dr. Gregers claims are extreme."

Not a consumer of alcohol myself, but this seems about right...

9037 studies demonstrate that red meat causes cancer. I'm well aware that you can manipulate statistics, which is why there is an organisation called the World Cancer Research Fund. They've sifted through 500,000 studies and currently have identified 9037 legitimate studies. wcrf.org/int/research-we-fund/cancer-prevention-recommendations/animal-foods

You might not like vegans or Dr. Greger, but you cannot argue against over 9000 peer reviewed, and medical journal published studies, that are unrelated, done by non-vegans, and then filtered through by non-vegan scientists to assess the quality of the results.

EDIT: They say that more than 300g of red meat a week puts you in serious danger of developing cancer - that quite clearly means it is at least as dangerous as smoking.

Dr. Greger confesses https://youtu.be/nK_I7z7ZELk

This! And in Dr. Greger's book he even says this

Something a long the lines of:
Eating a steak once a week has a negligible amount of risk associated with health, as does smoking once per week. But most people find it a slippery slope, so it's easier to avoid it completely.

I'll address your linked report first because I have a problem with the statistics on there. It's a little misleading because the bit you mentioned only considers cancer deaths attributable with processed meats.

But then goes to includes all diseases attributable with smoking, not just cancer.
So it's not comparing cancer to cancer rates. The report is comparing processed meat cancer with ALL smoking diseases.

And this makes smoking look a lot worse. For a fair comparison we'd need to compare only smoking caused cancers to processed meat cancers.
Or we'd need to compare diseases from processed meat, to all diseases from smoking.

Further the report, states that it's an 18% risk for only 50g of processed meat.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I ate the stuff, it wasn't just 50g. That's like 3 chicken nuggets. I'd eat 9 at least in one sitting for lunch(150g). Maybe I had 2 rashers of bacon for breakfast, another 50g, and then I might have a few slices of salami for dinner, another 50g.

So in a day I might have eaten 250g of processed meat. So it might only be 18% chance to get cancer, but that's 5 times I've rolled the dice(250 divded by 50g = 5). So even low odds get pretty dangerous if you roll the dice often enough.


Right after that paragraph, it goes on to say that the total number of attributable deaths to processed meat is 644,000.

So now we're finally comparing apples with apples. 644,000 processed meat deaths vs. 1 million tobacco deaths.

Still smoking is the clear winner here, but it's 2/3 the way there. So to me Dr. Greger's statement is starting to ring true.

Of course Dr. Greger isn't only talking about processed meat, he's talking about all meat, including poultry and fish too. Because just like processed meat, they have cholesterol and saturated fat which causes heart disease and diabetes without a doubt.
The heart disease statistics are (google says:) "An estimated 17.5 million people died from CVDs in 2012, representing 31% of all global deaths"
Now granted not all of these cardiovascular diseases will be diet related. But we only need to another 366,000 out of that 17.5 million to be caused by diet, and now we're comparing 1 million meat related deaths to 1 million tobacco related deaths.

So it's totally comparable in my eyes. And in the end, regardless of which has higher chances of cancer. The death rates are easily matched.

(not to mention colorectal cancer is kills more people, even though more people get lung cancer. Because lung cancer is more survivable).

Absolutely false. He's outright saying that stopping eating meat, and nothing else, is equivalent to stopping smoking, which is an outright lie.
He sells a lifestyle, with books, blogs, websites, videos, and appearances for sale. There's nothing wrong with that, unless you claim to not have a financial tie to your movement or financial incentives to mislead and exaggerate. He clearly does, and lies about that too.

Insisting on honesty does nothing to remove personal responsibility for yourself. Please.

No one mentions Dr Williams because he's not making up studies or results, he's offering a personal opinion and explanation of his personal actions...not lying to convince others to follow suit out of misplaced fear....like your hero, "Dr" Greger.

It's proper to attack the zealous liar that's making a living selling lies....like "Dr" Greger, no matter when they appear on screen.

One more example of him lying....taking "Consumption of foods high in saturated AND industrially produced trans fats, salt, and sugar is the cause of at least 14 million deaths" and restated it as "consumption of animal foods (and processed foods) leads to at least 14 million deaths."...but the study conclusion he references doesn't mention animal foods at all, he just added that, and emphasized it over what the study actually said while completely omitting processed plant based foods, which are just as bad as the meat ones according to the study. That's lying. Lies like that make it difficult to take personal responsibility for your health, because you have to debunk them to get to the good advice/actual facts.

Dr. Greger has never claimed that the W.H.O said that.

I don't mind if you criticize Dr. Greger at all. But your criticisms aren't valid. They're based on your own agenda.

Those DVD's are the same as his free videos , and the book is just the written form of the videos. Nobody has to buy any of it at all. That's how charities work.

What merch??? he doesn't sell any. You're the only one misrepresenting the facts here.

He's not there to make himself rich. Because as mentioned earlier in the topic, there are many easier ways to make money as a doctor.

He is not lying and misrepresenting facts, or promoting a bias. You're the only one saying that, and it's based on a technicality and poor research on your own behalf.

So now you do admit that your blog post was a smear attack. You weren't "simply mentioning". We'll it's going to be hard to have an honest discussion then. Because you're happy to lie in order to be "right".

Dr. Greger reads " every single diet related research paper, written in English, every year" He says this as his opener on every presentation he does.

If that doesn't make him a qualified and credible source, then I don't know what does.

PhD's are focused on a single, narrow yet very detailed topic. So mentioning PhD isn't even relevant here.


The fact that you've come to the conclusion that he's not a credible source based on your own technicalities is just absurd.

Sliced turkey and chicken nuggets = processed meat. The report was warning about processed meat.
Poultry and fish = unprocessed meat. They mentioned this because they were talking about red meat (unprocessed) and didn't want people to become confused. But that obviously failed in this case.

OK here I'll admit you're right, please don't take advice from me, without doing your own research as well. But you said you're lacto-vegetarian, and most people don't eat carrots on their own, or just potatoes on their own. Most people make mash-potoates (with milk). Most people dip their carrots into creamy cheeses etc.

The only thing I've lost is a bit of my free time, and I'm happy to give it up because I'm enjoy this conversation.

Your blog post doesn't "simply mention" anything. Your blog post is clearly an attack on Dr. Greger's credibility.

For starters the blog post title is "The case against Dr. Greger" AND!!!!! you put "Dr." into quotations to suggest he's not a doctor, or not worthy of being one.

You try to catch him out on a technicality, which you misword in your post to make it sound worse than it is.

Your artifical sweetner claims are also weak. ( The number of industry funded positive studies don't outweight the recent studies showing how bad artificial sweetners actually are, from obesity, to aspartame turning into formaldehyde in the blood).

These aren't the actions of someone that is "simply mentioning" something. You had a clear agenda when you wrote that blog post. Which was either to create controversy in order to get traffic to your website, or to justify your non-vegan diet at the time of writing.


Also if you're having digestive issues, it's most likely dairy. Not just milk and cheese, but the milk powder they put into processed foods.

Edit:
Chicken nuggets are poultry yes, but they are highly processed - which puts them into the processed meat category. The WHO report doesn't specifically mention every single type of processed meat and brand because they're assuming that people can tell what processed meat is. But apparently they've given people too much credit.

All Dr. Greger is essentially saying is eat more vegetables & fruits - he's not selling some weird pill or bogus device.
You don't have to give him a cent, and can watch his videos for free. Yet everyone is acting like he's taking people's money and laughing all the way to the bank.

Funny how as soon as someone says to take responsibility for your own actions - people will do anything it takes to make sure they don't have to.

How come nobody has tried the character assassination technique on Dr. Kim Williams yet? (The top cardiologist in the US, mentioned at the end of the video, who is vegan specifically for health reasons) .

It's much easier to attack the first person the on screen that is telling you to take control of your life, because then you can feel good about not taking any action.

I have been following Dr. Greger for sometime now. He provides an excellent source of information on food and diet.

http://nutritionfacts.org/

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?

Here are my sources, and each book is filled with thousands of references to peer reviewed published studies.

The Starch Solution, Dr. John McDougall.
Negative Calorie Effect, Dr Neal Barnard.
Power Foods for the Brain, Dr Neal Barnard.
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Dr. Cadwell Esselstyn.
Engine #2 Diet, Rip Esselstyn.
How Not To Die, Dr. Michael Greger

This video isn't as detailed as the books, but it's a pretty good introduction http://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-causes-of-death/

After reading these, and watching all of Dr Greger's videos, I'm now certain that there is overwhelming evidence showing how bad animal products are for health. So there is no reason to write things in a debatable way, because there is no reason to debate the truth.


We live in the Matrix and it's time for everyone to wake up.