• Guest, the forum is undergoing some upgrades and so the usual themes will be unavailable for a few days. In the meantime, you can use the forum like normal. We'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Has this advice worked for anyone??

Far away on Mount Kuyeh there dwells a spirit man whose skin is like congealed snow and who is gentle as a virgin. He does not eat any of the five grains, but inhales the wind and drinks the dew.
 
Oh your post mentioned Tofu tofu was invented about 2000 years ago by Taoist Chinese monks one of their dietary regimes is Bigu which centers on the avoidance of grains and that is one of their sayings.

Grains are plant based I believe. As is soya but not I think a grain.
 
JohnEGreen said:
Oh your post mentioned Tofu tofu was invented about 2000 years ago by Taoist Chinese monks one of their dietary regimes is Bigu which centers on the avoidance of grains and that is one of their sayings.

Grains are plant based I believe. As is soya but not I think a grain.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Google says soya is a legume.
 
JohnEGreen said:
Oh your post mentioned Tofu tofu was invented about 2000 years ago by Taoist Chinese monks one of their dietary regimes is Bigu which centers on the avoidance of grains and that is one of their sayings.

Grains are plant based I believe. As is soya but not I think a grain.
Click to expand...
Soya are beans, but like grain they are also seeds. Do you know what the difference is that makes grain allegedly a bad choice but beans benign?
 
Cocosilk said:
You know, the problem is that people call themselves vegan and aren't necessarily eating that many vegetables... I had an au pair from Italy last year who only stayed for 2 weeks. She told me she was vegan after she arrived. I thought, poor thing, you've landed in a house with one of the biggest meat eaters I have known (my husband)...

Anyway, I watched what she was eating while she was here. She did once or twice make a dish with some vegetables in it. But otherwise she subsisted on peanut butter and jam sandwiches. And sometimes that was all she was eating for the whole day - one little sandwich in the morning! She was starving herself. I actually think she had an eating disorder but was going around calling herself vegan.

Another vegetarian I knew was eating a few veggies here and there but filling up on pasta and rice and other such grains. Plus some of them eat sweets and all the naughty food like anyone else on a SAD.

Do you think vegetarians who eat a "clean" diet of vegetables, fruit, nuts, cheese, yoghurt, eggs, olive oil, (even fish?) would get diabetes? I think it's all the processed grains that are the problem, isn't it?

With vegans, in my opinion, there is some clever social engineering going on and they are the gullible ones. I mean, you can survive for a long time on vegetables alone. I was just watching some documentary of poor Chinese villagers who live off mostly white potatoes, and they somehow survive into old age... I'm not sure how healthy they are or how long they really live but they are all out in the fields working hard and not eating a great variety.
But I think the push to encourage people to be vegan is so that someone else can take the meat. Even if you choose not to eat meat, it will still be farmed in your country most likely and just exported to the places that want it. The damage to the environment will still happen. China already owns a great number of farms in Australia, for example, and they would be sending meat back to China for sure. Most of the best cuts of meat probably never arrive on an average Australian's dinner plate. I know that's what's happening with "our" seafood. We get the left overs. All the best stuff goes overseas. So why not convince everyone to be vegan and let all of the good animal protein be sent off to other countries who are willing to pay more for it? Clever ploy?

The difference is in our programming. I first noticed that cultural difference if you will when I was on a reef trip with some Japanese students. We went on a glass bottom boat to see all the beautiful reef fish. I was looking at the fish with wonder - all the colours and shapes and sizes. My students were looking at them and said "Yum!" It didn't occur to me to think of them in terms of food. I guess they were more in touch with the reality of where our food comes from... ha ha
Click to expand...
Hi @Cocosilk

I am rather uncomfortable with the tone of some of this post. Although I do recognise that the written word sometimes makes it difficult to appreciate the writer’s intentional tone.

for example, you seem to be making sweeping generalisations about vegans based on a couple of examples, and calling them ‘deluded’ as a result. Clearly your sample is too small to draw any such conclusion, and I remind you that this forum is for everyone, including members who make different lifestyle and eating choices from your own, some of whom are vegan - and who are entitled to use the forum without having such comments aimed at them.

In fact, we even have a group of forum rules intended to prevent members from making judgemental, hostile ‘us and them’ style posts about those who make different lifestyle choices.

There is a link to the forum rules if you wish to familiarise yourself with them.

ed. For clarity and by a mod to edit quoted text
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mr_Pot said:
Soya are beans, but like grain they are also seeds. Do you know what the difference is that makes grain allegedly a bad choice but beans benign?
Click to expand...
Modern grains being high GI and potentially gut damaging though less fart inducing. You pays your money, you takes your choice or you get a Soy bean burger!
 
NicoleC1971 said:
Modern grains being high GI and potentially gut damaging though less fart inducing. You pays your money, you takes your choice or you get a Soy bean burger!
Click to expand...
My question was actually to @JohnEGreen who mentioned the avoidance of grain 2000 years ago. However there does seem to be a common opinion on here that grains are bad beyond the GI value.
 
I regularly eat tofu, alone it has no impact on my levels. I usually incorporate it in a meal so then count the carbs. Roughly 2g per serving...
 
Diakat said:
I regularly eat tofu, alone it has no impact on my levels. I usually incorporate it in a meal so then count the carbs. Roughly 2g per serving...
Click to expand...
It appears that, providing the additional carbs are taken into account, tofu/soya is fine.

Some, like me, were unaware of the carbs in them, as many proteins do not have carbs.
 
Bigu like veganism is also a spiritual or ethical matter
Mr_Pot said:
Soya are beans, but like grain they are also seeds. Do you know what the difference is that makes grain allegedly a bad choice but beans benign?
Click to expand...

That you would have to a Taoist I am not one I merely was pointing out that tofu was not invented to avoid meat but grains although some Taoists are vegetarians not all are.

Personally I am not that fond of either except of course for baked beans which I have not eaten in a long while.

Taoist generally adhere to the Yin Yang principle of balance.

Yin foods are believed to be cool and thought to moisten your body. Yang foods are believed to be warm and drying.
The yin or yang characteristics of a certain food have less to do with its actual temperature or moisture level than its purported energy properties and effects on your body.
"Cool" or yin foods are generally low in calories and high in potassium. They’re recommended in hot weather. "Hot" or yang foods tend to be higher in calories and sodium. They’re recommended in colder months to help warm your body.

Common yin foods include:
soy products, such as tofu and soybean sprouts
certain meats, such as crab and duck
fruit, such as watermelon and star fruit
vegetables, such as watercress, cucumbers, carrots, and cabbage
cold drinks and water
Common yang foods include:
most foods that are high in fat, protein, calories, and sodium
certain meats, such as chicken, pork, and beef
warm spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger
eggs, glutinous rice, sesame oil, bamboo, and mushrooms
alcoholic beverages
 
Last edited:
lucylocket61 said:
It looks like soya and tofu have carbs in them, in varying amounts.
Click to expand...
Supermarket tofu has carbs in it, and the people that are in the know use the fermented forms of tofu such as tempeh. This removes some of the protective phytocemicals that soya has to protect it and turns the carbs into resistnt starch. What is often left out is that some 40% of the population is badly affected by eating soy products in the unfermented version and there was a big scandal over textured vegetable protein (TVP) used in commercial ready meals.

It is also a misnomer that animal feed is using up the rainforest. Soya is deadly for ruminants such as cattle and pigs and sheep, but is fed primarily to poultry along with expensve corn. Blame the birds for deforestation There is soya put into cattle cake, but it is only the left over husks which would normally be burnt or treated as waste products since no one else eats the husk except possibly some beetles. The husk helps to reduce methane production as roughage does for us.
 
Oldvatr said:
Supermarket tofu has carbs in it, and the people that are in the know use the fermented forms of tofu such as tempeh. This removes some of the protective phytocemicals that soya has to protect it and turns the carbs into resistnt starch. What is often left out is that some 40% of the population is badly affected by eating soy products in the unfermented version and there was a big scandal over textured vegetable protein (TVP) used in commercial ready meals.

It is also a misnomer that animal feed is using up the rainforest. Soya is deadly for ruminants such as cattle and pigs and sheep, but is fed primarily to poultry along with expensve corn. Blame the birds for deforestation There is soya put into cattle cake, but it is only the left over husks which would normally be burnt or treated as waste products since no one else eats the husk except possibly some beetles. The husk helps to reduce methane production as roughage does for us.
Click to expand...
I tend not to eat commercial ready meals but what was this scandal @Oldvatr ?
 
Diakat said:
I tend not to eat commercial ready meals but what was this scandal @Oldvatr ?
Click to expand...
When TVP was introduced into TV dinners, packet dinners and especially in things like Vesta meals and early pot noodles, there were reports of people falling ill after eating TVP based products. It was initially feared that it was a problem with production process contamination leading to food poisoning, but eventually it was narrowed down to a soya allergen which has now been filtered out somewhere in the supply chain. However it was taken quite seriously when I was a relative youngster. A friend of mine has suffered a reaction to Edame beans, which indicates that this form of soy may still contain the allergen. I find they give me painful wind, but I survive without too much discomfort. Bsked beans have a similar effect on some.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/495664-harmful-effects-of-textured-vegetable-protein/
 
Oldvatr said:
https://www.calorieking.com/us/en/foods/f/calories-in-soy-products-tempeh/6VxZOkPZR4-X71ySX5B_Jw
See how long a walk you need to see off 1 cup of the stuff.
Click to expand...
Your tempeh seems to have a completely different breakdown than mine: https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi232355/ah-tempeh
Besides, yours gives the breakdown per 167 grams instead of per 100, which makes for a very hard calculation.

Walking off 1 cup of the stuff? Do you mean calories? People need calories to sustain them or we would starve. Calories aren't even mentioned in the opening post so I don't get where that comes in.
If you mean walking off the carbs, at 5.5 grams per 100 grams it fully counts as a low carb food.
 
Back
Top